The Prank
by thaigirl2009
Summary: Lilly Evans, is your your typical bookworm, or so it would seem. She and her two best friends have a bit of a secret. It's simple really. They're "Them." Of course, no one else knows or even suspects. Well, except Dumbledore, he does know occulemcy.
1. Chapter 1

_Okay, Several of you, will probably be annoyed. I am working on an update, one that I am getting excited about while I write it. But I realized that this is kind of hard to read, so I'm going to split up Chapter one, so that it's not quite as long, and so that no one misses any important information. I hope you guys enjoy the story._

**The Prank**

Fifteen year old Lilly Evans was busily working in the library, while completely unobservant to her surroundings. She was doing what she always did, after reading all of her text books over the summer; she was studying the ones that she and her classmates would be using the following year. Lilly had done this for as long as she could remember. Originally in first year, she would simply "borrow without permission" from the second years and return their textbooks completely unnoticed. Once her second year hit, she figured that it'd just be easier to buy the year above hers text book as well.

Currently she was browsing the 'Standard Book of Spells, Grade Six' looking to see which spell she wanted to learn first. She continued flipping page after page, her eyes, staring keenly at the book, until she spotted one that looked rather interesting. It was an advanced version of the spell Lumos. Lilly bent further over the book, as she began speed reading through the descriptive text.

"Lumos Felibus is an advanced version of the spell Lumos. Instead of the small amount of light that is produced from using Lumos, this branch of the spell will flood an entire room, allowing numerous amounts of light, regardless of whether or not the darkness is a spell, or natural."

Lilly grinned. She quickly picked up the rest of her things, after bookmarking the page and hurried off to an empty classroom. She found one a few doors down from the library, after making sure no one was looking, she slid inside and reopened her text book. After going over the theory once more she pulled out her wand and started practicing. After several tries, her wand erupted into light, but to her delight it didn't extinguish like she thought it would, instead it stayed. Jumping up from the desk she was sitting on, she quickly turned out the lights, but the class room barely registered the difference. The light trailing out of Lilly's wand was so powerful, that it lit the entire room.

"This is cool." She whispered, bending back over the text and muttering the counter spell. She was about to start looking for another spell that she had caught a glimpse of, when the door burst open, causing Lilly to jump.

"Lilly!" Looking up, she saw her best friend Ashton grinning from ear to ear. "One day and you've already been to the library?" She asked teasingly. Lilly nodded quickly and then motioned her inside. Ashton complied, closing the door behind her. "Okay, what've you learned?" She asked.

"Lumos Felibus." Lilly whispered excitedly, while flicking her wand. The effect was once again immediate. "Advanced version of Lumos." Lilly explained at Ashton's look of wonder.

"Can you teach me?" She asked. Lilly nodded and had her read the book and within minutes Ashton had produced the same light that Lilly had just previously distinguished. "This is an awesome spell." She whispered, causing Lilly to erupt into giggles.

"I feel like we go through this every year." She said, catching Ashton's eye. The two of them laughing.

"That's because we do." Ashton said rolling her eyes. "But, we need to head down to lunch, Parker's probably beat us there, and you know how she is about food." With that the two girls packed up the rest of Lilly's things and hurried down to the Great Hall. The entire student population was packed into the four large house tables, already, as they walked over towards their usual end of the table. The one furthest from the door, as predicted Parker was already there, eating with her nose in a book.

"Parker!" Ashton yelped as Lilly rolled her eyes. Of the three of them, Ashton had far too much energy, although it did come in handy occasionally. Lilly ran a hand through her long curly red hair that had fallen down around her shoulders. Her sideways bangs curled and flipped as they fell across her forehead and left eye.

"Hey guys." Parker said after swallowing a mouthful of food. "What spell have you been learning today?"

"I found an advanced version of the spell Lumos." Lilly answered as she started filling a bowl full of corn. "It's pretty cool; we'll teach it to you later. So what have you been up to on this fine day?"

"Erm, well, I've been reading outside by the lake. I vacated the dorm as fast as possible. Apparently someone got new mascara or lip-gloss, or something." Parker explained grinning. "They were driving me mad." The three girls began chuckling as they continued eating.

"So, any idea as to why they started term on a Friday this year?" Ashton asked. "Not that I'm complaining. I mean, it gives me time to actually complete my homework, but isn't it sort of a waste?" Parker and Lilly shrugged.

"I think it has to do with that Voldermort guy." Parker whispered while glancing down the table, to make sure no one heard her. "I think the teachers were worried that he might try something, a lot of people are getting worried." She said. "The Daily Prophet is reporting a disappearance or two every few weeks."

"I haven't been able to renew my subscription." Lilly said sadly. "My mum felt it was best to give my sister a break from the Owls flying in and out." Ashton made a sigh of disgust.

"I seriously am contemplating showing up at your house on my seventeenth birthday and petrifying that girl." She growled as Lilly shook her head slowly.

"I don't think that would help. My mom would probably freak out even more. Neither of them really likes me being a witch to begin with, especially not my sister." Parker eyed her friend sadly. She was extremely glad her entire family was magical, although she really could care less about being a pureblood.

But she couldn't imagine what it was like to have your very own sister torment you every summer, and holiday that you went home to, just because you could do magic. Lilly's mum had always been wary, but Lilly had always explicitly said that she supported her.

"What'd they say about you being prefect?" She asked quickly. Lilly looked up and smiled.

"Mum was so happy. Especially once I explained it fully. She couldn't stop smiling once I had gotten my letter, and she actually bought me Sneakers as a reward." Lilly couldn't keep the silly grin off of her face as she thought about the adorable kitten asleep in her dormitory at the moment.

"I swear I'm going to steal her from you Lilly." Ashton said grinning. "She's the cutest thing ever." The three girls chortled as they began picking their things up and heading out of the Great Hall.

"So, what's next on the to do list?" Lilly asked once they were climbing the staircase. At this Parker began to get a grin on her face. "Thought so." Lilly said smirking back.

"What's the plan and who's the target?" Ashton asked, giggling. The three girls had been best friends from day one. They first met on the train, all three petrified of the sorting hat, although for various reasons. Lilly, was muggleborn, so didn't have any idea as to what to expect, while Parker was a pureblood, who's older brothers had told her horrifying stories about how you got sorted, and Ashton was afraid of tripping in front of everyone.

While all three were crazed bookworms, they all had their own special talents and preferences. Lilly, had quickly fallen in love with charms, and would create some of her own. She also had a problem with writing. She couldn't ever stop. She was currently on her third novel, although no one ever read them of course. Lilly, was the biggest bookworm of all. She could rarely ever bring herself to separate from a book, unless she was practicing charms, writing, or pulling pranks with Ashton and Parker.

Parker was more of the prankster. While Lilly was addicted to writing, Parker was addicted to pranks, and flying. She'd learnt when she was five, and had hated putting her feet on the ground ever since. But her other talent, was drawing. She'd constantly go down to the edge of the lake and start sketching the castle, the lake, or the forest. Parker's hair was spirally curly; it was long, and ebony. She wore it with sideways bangs, as did Lilly, and in tons of layers. Both of their hair appeared to be similar, but each were tweaked to fit with their styles and faces. Parker's eyes were a brilliant sapphire.

Ashton, on the other hand had a warm, golden, honey, brown, shade of hair, to match her chocolate eyes. Her hair was cut into choppy layers, but it was straight, and ended at the small of her back. Her biggest passion, other than her friends, was dancing. She'd taken ballet ever since she was three, because her mom owned a studio, even when she came to Hogwarts, she still practiced, thanks to the Room of Requirement. Because of her ballet, she'd constantly start walking in on the balls of her feet. This of course, would continuously earn her odd looks from all her classmates.

Lilly, Ashton, and Parker held the top three spots in their year, academically, and none had ever gotten a detention, for anything. They were so good at pulling their various pranks, that no one ever suspected them. For one, they didn't really speak to anyone outside of their trio, in addition to being the top students, and they could actually keep from bragging about all the things that they'd done.

Every prank that they pulled was designed in the same way; Parker was responsible of what exactly the pranks were and how to get it done, while Lilly took care of the spell work that it required. Ashton was constantly doing distractions and legwork, in addition to helping create the alibis. But what she was brilliant at was sneaking about, thanks to her silence while walking, as well as her knowledge of the school. Their group worked quite brilliantly together.

The only real problem was that they had competition. Not that they minded. No, in fact they loved that the Marauders thought they could actually keep up. No one knew exactly who was behind the pranks pulled by the three girls. The only trace they left was a triangle, bearing letters at each point. The top was PE, and the bottom points were, MR, and HB. Of course, this told the school, absolutely nothing, and then again, everything, simultaneously. As cheesy as it was, the girls had been in first year when they figured they needed to be able to claim their tricks, so, they created this. The letters were simple; Pureblooded Ebony, Muggleborn Red, and Half-blood Bronze. To be fair, they'd create it in first year.

Their competitors were the infamous Marauders. The girls had to hand it to them; their pranks were generally very nice. But still, they had nothing on the girls. However, it did help to know who your opponents were. The entire school suspected that the Marauders were made up of James Potter, Sirius Black, Remus Lupin, and Peter Pettigrew. The four most popular guys that attended Hogwarts. Ashton, Lilly, and Parker, knew without a doubt that those four were their competition. They also knew that Remus was in fact a werewolf, and the boys were unregistered animangi.

Lilly had figured out the werewolf bit in second year. It wasn't that hard to notice, especially after the students studied them in Defense Against the Dark Arts. However, they didn't find out about the other three until last year when Parker had followed them into the forest and had caught sight of them changing. She'd been in awe, because of how advanced the magic was. But the girls had never told anyone else their secret. They didn't want to, for various reasons, one, it wasn't any of their business, another was that they trusted Dumbledore, and they were positive that he knew, and finally, if they ratted them out, their competition would be booted out of the school.

They were currently up in the astronomy tower so that they wouldn't be overheard.

"Okay, so Parker, what's this big idea that you have?" Ashton asked; grinning as Parker smirked.

"I think that as our first prank, for this term, we should target James Potter and his crew. After all, it's not like they'd be able to get us back." She answered smugly. That was truth; rumors had been flying ever since the two groups had started vying for the trouble maker spot in first year. Currently, everyone thought that it was a bunch of Slytherin boys.

"Hmm..." Lilly said quietly. Both turned to look at her expectantly. "Well, you want to know what would drive them mad." when she didn't continue, they both yelled out,

"What?"

"Pranking them from inside their dorm. They'd be dying to know how on earth the Slytherin's managed it. Even if they do realize that it's someone in Gryffindor, they'll never think it was a girl, much less us three." At this, Parker erupted into laughter.

"Lilly, you're amazing. I must say." Lilly giggled and stood up and took a mock bow.

"I try." With this they were all giggling like mad. "Okay, so what exactly do you think would irritate them the most?"

"Well, you know how Sirius is about his hair." Ashton paused. "What if we manipulated it somehow, like, either cut it off magically, or changed it to dred locks, something crazy."

The girls thought about it.

"I like it as a beginning. But we have to hit all four of them simultaneously. What about Potter,"

Ashton jumped up with a start. "Well, you know how he Is with girls. We could fiddle with that aspect….like, ---"

"What about their uniforms?" Lilly said suddenly, as a coy grin spread across her face. "You know how they love their images. What if we swap their uniforms?" The other two caught on really quickly.

"Is there a way for them to think they're wearing their normal ones?" Parker asked. Lilly nodded.

"We can do Sirius' hair, at the same time we fix their clothes. We'll have to actually get into their room, to do that though. But I think it's best to actually switch it over once they've hit the Great Hall." She explained.

"We're going to have to come up with a way of getting them to stay asleep." Ashton said quickly. "We can't' risk getting caught." Lilly grinned. Nope. With all that they'd done over the years, they'd get expelled if anyone ever turned them in.

"But that's half the fun." Parker whined. "The thrill of getting caught!"

"Yeah, but is it worth what they'll do to us?" Ashton asked, trying not to laugh at Parker's hysterical antics.

"Even if they catch us, it's not like they're going to know who we actually are." Lilly said. "All we have to say is that we think they're hot, and that we wanted to make out with them and their pig headedness will completely block all of their suspicions." She said disgust lining her voice.

"She's right." Parker said grinning. "I mean, I'm sure they'll sleep through it anyways. But if they don't, the worse they can do is kick us out." As Ashton shook her head grinning.

"You just happen to have a thing for Black." Ashton shot out, laughing at Parker's look of hilarity.

"No I don't." she sputtered. "He's too arrogant, and besides, I have a feeling he's made out with every girl in this school, save for first, second and third years." But Lilly and Ashton were howling with laughter.

They continued to plan and began mapping out their time slots to see exactly how much it would take to pull this off. It was decided that Ashton would keep a look out, and if anyone started coming near the door, she'd create a barrier within the door frame, while Parker fixed Sirius' hair and Lilly cast the spell, that would allow her to change their clothes at her every whim. She put it on every single uniform, because she had a feeling they'd try to sneak back up and change.

As an afterthought, Ashton vanished their crumpled uniforms, making sure they couldn't just wear those for today. Luckily for them all four boys stayed completely silent as they stole out of the room as quietly as possible. They quickly walked down to breakfast; laughing as they talked about how exciting today was going to be. They knew that Gryffindor house was going to get a rude awakening this morning, on the account that Sirius Black absolutely adored his hair.

The moment they walked in through the Great Hall doors, Parker nudged Lilly with her foot. Looking up quickly, she muttered the incantation she'd looked up last night, and pointed her wand. Within seconds, the four boys were wearing a different uniform from one another. Potter was dressed in Slytherin, Black, in Hufflepuff, Pettigrew was sporting Gryffindor, and Lupin was in Ravenclaw. But that wasn't the best part, no; they were wearing the girls' uniform. The student body stared in shock, and then began howling with laughter. The four boys all looked at one another, smirking, before realizing that they themselves were dressed just as ridiculous.

Floating above their heads was the triangle enigma, letting everyone know who was responsible for this prank. The boys grinned, before dashing out of the hall. After finishing their breakfast the girls all headed for Charms, by far Lilly's favorite class. The boys hadn't reappeared, which made the girls smirk even more. By Transfiguration, they were all sitting in the class, before everyone else got there, even beating Lilly, Ashton, and Parker.

Lilly walked to her desk, forcing herself not to look at the four ridiculously dressed boys. The girls prided themselves on no one ever finding out about who was behind their antics. But it was so hard, not to laugh, especially at the fact that they hadn't managed to get the ridiculous clothes back to normal. It was a simple enough spell, but it was rarely ever used.

Ashton was having an extremely difficult time not laughing. Especially at how Sirius Black kept scowling. Parker was sending her warning glances as often as possible, but they were more like her smirks. Eventually they made it to their desks, which were in the middle of the room, while the boys sat in the very back.

"You know, it's rude to laugh." At this the girls all glanced at each other, trying to warn them not to say anything. Luckily the rest of the class decided to walk in at that moment, and of course, they all erupted into laughter. McGonagall was less than pleased.

"Boys, is there a reason that you have chosen not to dress in your standard uniform?" she asked disapprovingly. "Much less, the other houses?" They all began muttering, and then as an explanation, Potter pointed to the signs above their heads.

"Oh." With that she began to start the lesson. Lilly was extremely proud of herself for getting her transfiguration assignment down quite easily. Well, to be fair, she did learn how to do this last year. Although, she did struggle with this class the most. But when Professor McGonagall had announced that they'd be transfiguring a snail into a tea pot, she did it in one try.

"Miss Evans twenty points to Gryffindor." She said as she picked up her tea pot as she had passed by her desk. "Don't worry about homework." Lilly grinned and started pulling out parchment and writing her next leg of the book that she was creating.

"Mr. Potter, Mr. Black, and Mr. Lupin, five points for being able to transfigure your snails properly." She said approvingly. Before class let out she assigned everyone practice, and Lilly, Ashton, and Parker hurried out of the room.

"Let me guess Miss Evans," Parker began in a mock McGonagall voice, "You mastered that charm, when, hmm…last year perhaps?" Lilly turned pink and gave her a playful push.

"So? What's your point? Be grateful that I have mad study skills." Lilly said giggling.

"Yes, we're grateful, but I thought that was your worst subject." Ashton interjected. Lilly shrugged.

"Yeah, but I was bored." With that they headed off to lunch. The day was going by splendid. Their first prank was seen by everyone, quite consistently and no one suspected them as usual. After all, who in their right minds would, seeing as they're the perfect student?

Later that evening…..

"Who could have pulled this off?" Sirius asked heatedly. "I mean, we couldn't even get rid of it!" his three best friends all looked rather sullen.

"You have to give them credit. It was some decent magic." James said as he took a sip of firewhiskey. "Just be glad it's faded off." There was a moment of silence before anyone else spoke.

"WE can't just let them get away with it. We need justice!" Sirius yelped, while Peter nodded his agreement.

"As much as we all love that idea," Remus began, "there's a small problem…we don't know who they are." As this sunk in, they all became a bit more depressed.

"They have to be older." James said roughly. "I mean, that was decent magic, more than any normal fifth year could have done. After all, they swapped out our clothes, without a glitch or anything."

"Stupid Slytherins." Sirius muttered; his hand was running over his newly re-grown tresses.

"Erm—guys, what makes you think it was a Slytherin?" Peter spoke up. "I mean, how else do you explain Sirius' hair?" as they contemplated this, Sirius suddenly looked up.

"That hex." They all looked blankly at him. "Remember, someone hexed me yesterday, but it didn't do anything? That was probably the hair." At this they all relaxed.

"Either way, I think they had help. I mean, unless it was an older student, they had to have a lot of help." James said looking at his glass. "I mean we know, Remus didn't do it, and he's the top in the year."

"No I'm not." At this they all stared at him. "Erm—that Evans girl is. I'm fourth." He muttered sounding embarrassed.

"Evans…." Sirius muttered thinking. "Evans…have I made out with that one?" at this Peter shook his head.

"I don't think so. She's a bookworm. Practically lives in the library." He said after he'd gotten their attention. As they continued to draw blank stares, he continued, "She's about five foot five, deep ruby red hair, and emerald eyes."

"Oh." James said suddenly. "She's in our classes." At this they all groaned.

"Duh! She's in our year." Remus said smacking him in the head with a pillow. "Do you know her personally, Wormtail?" To their dismay, Peter shook his head.

"Never talked to her, well aside from her helping me out once in Charms. But that was in first year." they all became a bit gloomier again.

"Well, I believe that we may need to have a chat with Miss Evans." Remus said. The other three stared at him. He sighed, "No, I don't think that she is behind it. But she may know how they pulled it off, as in, they may have asked her about what types of magic they would need to use. We can ask her if she know who they are."

"Do you know what I just realized?" James spoke once more. They all looked at him grinning. "After all of these years, they don't even have a name. Everyone in this school just refers to them, as 'them, or they."

"What do you think that symbol means?" Peter asked. "The letters, MR, PE, HB. Do you think they're initials or something?" they all shrugged and stared at the fireplace once more, completely unobservant as a shape walked past them, and out of the common room.

Sunday, September 3

Lilly was sitting in the library. She'd completed all of her homework ages ago, and at the moment she was completely engrossed in her 'Standard Book of Spells, Grade 6.' In order to block out all noise, and keep everyone from disturbing her, she'd put up two powerful shield charms, as well as silencing the room around her as well as herself, so that no one could hear her and she couldn't hear them. She had bubbled herself into the corner as she began muttering spells and turning her useless cell phone into various things.

She was so engrossed into her work that she didn't even hear someone collide with the shield charm. Instead, she had began to pack her things up and dash off to an empty classroom, once she took the charms down, however that presented a problem seeing as James Potter was just beginning to clamber to his feet, right in front of her, thus blocking her escape route.

"excuse me." She murmured, trying to get past him. But he kept staring at her. "Can I help you?" she asked finally.

"Erm—well, I was wondering…" he sputtered. She sighed, looked at her books and rolled her eyes.

"Listen. You better go to the hospital wing to fix your nose. I have no idea how you broke it, but it's bleeding everywhere, and Madame Pince will not be happy if you ruin the books." She said before sliding past him. Lilly shook her long red hair as she tried to figure out what was wrong with the overly popular boy.

Probably took one too many bludgers to the head. She thought absently as she hurried to the nearest empty classroom. She checked to make sure no one was looking before sliding inside and closing the door behind her. But before Lilly could actually practice anything, her two best mates burst into the room.

"Lilly, we've got kind of a problem." Ashton said breathlessly. She looked at the two in surprise; both seemed to be a bit panicky. "Erm—their looking for you." Lilly didn't like her tone. It worried her.

"Who's looking for me?" she asked quietly.

"The Marauders," Parker answered. "They, erm—Ashton you explain, you overheard them." They both looked over at the brunette.

"Right...um, well, they really want to get the, well, us back. But they don't know that it's us. They seem to think it's an older Slytherin. But in the possibility that it's someone younger, they think they might have asked you for help. So they want to know if you know who pulled the trick." The moment she finished explaining Lilly erupted into giggles.

"I told you guys!" she said through laughs. "They'd never suspect, little Lilly Evans, or Ashton Scott, or Parker Mckinnons." After a moment of pausing to catch her breath, she added, "I'm tempted to tell them, just to see the looks on their faces."

"Lilly! You can't! They'll rat us out and we'll get expelled!" Ashton squealed. Only making Lilly laugh harder.

"I'm not stupid. I know that. That's why I'm not going to. Plus I don't want to put a target on my back. Do you realize how many people will hate us? After all of these years?" at this they all laughed even harder.

"Actually, I think they'll just be extremely surprised." Parker mused. "I doubt that anyone would get seriously angry. But anyways, what are we going to do about this?" she asked the other two.

"Nothing." Lilly answered swiftly. "Just act like normal. They're just looking for me; they've got no reason to think anything of you two, well other than that you're both gorgeous. I'll just feign all knowledge. Other than that, just act normal."

"Yeah. You're right." Parker agreed looking at Ashton who nodded. "Besides they actually have to find you first." At that statement, Lilly froze.

"Um, apparently they have." She whispered. The other two gaped at her. "Erm—well, I was in the library, and I had my shield charms up, so people wouldn't annoy me, and then when I was leaving, he was getting up off the floor…" Lilly gasped before laughing.

"What?" Ashton asked.

"He…he...must have ran into the shield charm." Lilly said. "He broke his nose." At this they all howled in laughter. "James Potter broke his nose walking into a shield charm." With that, they all left wandering down the hallways.

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Later that night, Lilly was sitting in the common room, scribbling away on various pieces of paper as she started to fall deeper and deeper into the story that she was creating in her mind.

"Run! Run now!" Telby screamed, to her as Jane stared in horror. Her best friend was laying on the ground, sobbing from the pain of her snapped ankle. She couldn't….no. before Telby could utter another word, Jane dove for her, and dragged her up, and began running as fast as she could.

"Jane, you have to save yourself! Leave me!" Telby cried in her ear. But Jane was too bent on getting them both to safety.

THUMP.

Startled, Jane sat up sharply, causing herself to bang her head on the top bunk. After cursing and rubbing her head, she slowly climbed out from the bottom bunk and glanced around the room. She was in her little brother's room. She must have fallen asleep after reading them their bed time story. But where were they and what was with that dream?

She crept out of the room, heading towards the kitc—

"Arrgh!" Lilly yelped, nearly falling off the couch. She'd glanced up, in thought, to stare off into space, as she so often did, and instead, her gaze connected with the infamous James Potter, who was sitting right across from her.

"You realize that it's rude to stare." She sputtered picking herself up. "Next time you could give a bit of a warning when you're sitting across from someone." He stared at her curiously.

"You weren't listening?" he asked in shock. She stared at him.

"You weren't talking." She said, mentally wondering why he was trying to make a conversation with her.

"Yes I was." He said stubbornly, causing Lilly to roll her eyes.

"Whatever." She mumbled, beginning to gather the dozens of paper into a single stack, by numerical order.

"What are you doing?" he asked suddenly.

"I'm organizing these." She answered shortly, glaring at the parchment in her hand. "Listen, is there something you need?"

"Erm—yeah, listen, Evans." Oh bugger. What a git. Needs to have a conversation and uses my last name. Lilly thought to herself. "Do you remember that little prank that was pulled on me and my friends—"

"My friends and I," Lilly corrected. He stared at her blankly. "Oh, sorry. Force of habit." She mumbled.

"er—okay, anyway, do you?" She nodded, attempting to smother a smirk. "Well, I was wondering if you possibly would know who was behind it." Lilly stared at him and then started giggling. I mean, I had no doubts about the whole conversation Ashton had overheard, but still, that he had actually asked. She thought, randomly.

"Why are you asking me?" Lilly asked. "What, going around and interrogating the entire school?" he smirked cockily and shook his head.

"No, doubt it would do anything. But well, your top in our class, we were wondering if you helped them or something." At this Lilly froze, a small smile playing at her lips, Lilly began thinking to herself, 'I could do one of two things, either, lie, or defend and lie. I figured the latter would be more fun.'

"Listen Potter, I'm in Gryffindor for a reason. Loyalty. Even if I did know anything about the situation, I wouldn't tell you. Besides, if I did know. I'd personally commend them on a job well done." She said grinning as his eyes narrowed.

"So you know." He said, LIlly continued grinning. "But you won't tell."

"No. I said, if I knew, I wouldn't tell."

"That's the same thing!" he said. Lilly started snickering again.

"Too bad they don't teach English here, Potter, key word is 'if." With that she got up and went to her dorm, putting her stack of papers in the small folder before sliding it into her bag. With that Lilly went back downstairs and out the portrait hole to find Parker.


	2. Chapter 2

_Okay, Several of you, will probably be annoyed. I am working on an update, one that I am getting excited about while I write it. But I realized that this is kind of hard to read, so I'm going to split up Chapter one, so that it's not quite as long, and so that no one misses any important information. I hope you guys enjoy the story._

**The Prank**

"You didn't!" she howled, crying with laughter, while we ate the pudding that the house elves had provided them with. Lilly nodded putting her bowl back down on the table.

"Yep." she said grinning. "The best part is; he thinks I know who is responsible, at least that's what he said, and then I went and told him he need to retake English." they continued howling with laughter. The week had quickly flown by and they'd loved every second of it. After all, they'd pranked the most popular, guys in school, again, and left them in a panic, all in a week.

**Monday, September 23**

Lilly was rather aggravated. She couldn't find a quill anywhere, and no one was around to borrow from. Ashton and Parker were off to who knows where and Lilly was currently sitting in the library. Eventually, after digging into the bottom of her bag, she pulled up a pack of ball point pens from the summer. She grinned and yanked one out before dropping the pack back into her bag. She never could understand why the magical world used quills.

She quickly fell back into writing her story, starting from another beginning.

"Telby? Are you here?" Jane called, hesitantly walking into her best friend's house. It appeared that no one had been here in ages. Dust covered every inch of the old manor, white sheets covering all of the furniture.

She continued wandering further and further inside, regardless of her instincts telling her to run. But she couldn't. she had to make sure Telby was okay. She forced herself to walk down the foyer, leading to the kitchen. Hesitantly, she opened the swinging door, nearly letting out a scream. There were scratch marks on every inch of every surface. Long, slash marks, from heavy knives. What on earth had happened?

She backed out of the room. Immensely grateful for bringing her maglight. She pulled out her cell phone and began dialing the police. But—

A loud clunk sounded to Lilly's right. Glancing up, she saw that James Potter had sat down next to her, and had began reading over her shoulder. She instantly covered up the writing and looked at him glaring.

"Can I help you?" she asked. This boy had been showing up at random times, and bugging her about that prank.

"Well, just give me a name." he said cockily. "Come on Evans, one little name." Lilly rolled her eyes.

"You know what. Fine!" she hissed, surprising him. "If you go down to the seventh floor, and think, 'what I want most' a door will appear and they're in there right now, plotting yet another prank." She then faked a sob.

"And Potter," I looked at him, "I swear, if you tell them you found out from me, I will personally hex you." He grinned at that, before dashing off. The moment he was gone, Lilly was howling with laughter. She was one of the worst liars. How in the world was that believable? She brushed the thoughts away as she returned to her work.

Lilly went back to her story, however, was rudely interrupted a moment later when Ashton came sprinting up.

"Erm—Lil, we may have a problem. Well another one." She said, before dragging Lilly out of the library and down onto the grounds. She saw exactly what Ashton meant when Parker was being surrounded by Slytherins and being taunted.

"Leave her alone!" Lilly yelled, yanking out her wand. The four Slytherins all turned around and glared at the two intruders.

"Stay out of this." A girl hissed. "It's none of your concern." Lilly rolled her eyes, before interrupting her.

"Actually. It is. That's my best friend, so bloody well leave her alone!" Lilly hissed. The girl with heavily lined eyelids turned back and pointed her wand at her.

"listen kid, I don't know who you are, but I will hex you if you don't get out of here right now." She hissed grinning.

"GO." Parker whispered, glaring at that back of Bellatrix Black's head. Lilly stared at her.

"No way." Ashton snarled. At that, Parker gave a slight nod of her head, and Lilly thought, 'Expelleriarumus!' pointing her wand at Bellatrix. Her wand ripped out of her hand and flew into Lilly's. Meanwhile, Parker had pointed her wand in to one of Bella's friend's back. Ashton was pointing hers at the third.

"Very impressive. Pureblood no doubt." Bellatrix said smirking, regardless of how angry she obviously was. Lilly remained silent, as she continued speaking. "Hopefully you're not as much of a blood traitor like your friend here."

"Just get out of here." Lilly hissed. They all began shuffling away and were halfway away when they summoned her wand again. Lilly's two friends stared at her.

"Okay, I am going to go out a limb and say, how on earth did you get that good on nonverbal spells?" Parker asked gaping at Lilly, who simply shrugged.

"Bookworm. Besides, it was the first one I ever practiced." Lilly answered. "So what was that about?"

"Something my parents did supposedly. Apparently they arrested her dad or something." She said giving a sad smile. "Wanted to take it out on me." She explained.

"Right. We're telling Dumbledore." Ashton said. "Don't even try to say no."

* * *

**October 5, Midnightish......_yes that's a word. =]_**

Wandering the corridors might be considered out of bounds, but where else was she to go? After all, she only needed a few hours of sleep a night. No she didn't have insomnia; she just only needed about five hours of sleep. Her body would automatically wake up and refuse to let her sleep past that. But she didn't mind.

Ashton Scott knew Hogwarts castle like no other, well, perhaps Dumbledore. But she knew of secret passageways that would lead inside and out of the castle, as well as shortcuts. Most of the paintings were actually doors as well, but it seemed that no one seemed to realize that. She was currently sitting inside an indoor lake on the fifth floor. She'd stumbled upon this once upon a time in her third year. it had the same shade as the Caribbean, and a small island with a palm tree in the middle. It was gorgeous. One of her favorite spots in the entire castle. Often times, she and the girls would sneak up here to go swimming or to just talk. It was an amazing secret. She loved Hogwarts; it was her home, well second home.

For one thing, the magic in the place was amazing. Outside in the corridor it would be cool, but in this room, it was as if you were sitting in the Caribbean itself, speaking of which….Ashton quickly began to undress herself, in order to go for a swim.

Later on, that morning….ish….

"James! Oi! James!" James Potter opened his eyes to see his best friend, Sirius staring down at him. "We're going to be late for breakfast." He slowly sat up and got dressed, shoving his glasses onto his face, and managing to poke himself in the eye with them. Eventually he was able to stumble downstairs, where the rest of his mates were waiting.

As they were still waiting on Remus, quite a surprise for once, he caught a flash of red at the door way of the fifth year girls' dorm. He kept watching, wondering if it was her, he had quite the bone to pick with her. A few seconds later and she appeared, dressed in the school uniform, her long red hair was worn down, allowing it to curl freely down her back. She was smiling; laughing along with two other girls that James had no idea who they were. As the three girls began to skate by them, James reached out and snagged Evan's arm.

"We need to talk." He said quietly, while her two friends stared at him, to top it all off, Lilly was rolling her eyes, and shaking her head. "Yes we do." She looked up at him in surprise.

"Erm—kay, no idea what you are talking about." She said smiling sweetly. "So you can let go of my arm now." Her eyes glinted in the light, with a steel edge of malice. She knew how to handle herself.

"I believe someone gave me false information." He said quietly. At this she grinned, realization pouring into her face. James was dumbfounded to realize that she had actually forgotten.

"No I didn't." she repeated. "You obviously missed them," and with that, she wrenched her arm from his grasp and dove for the portrait hole, accompanied by her two friends. He turned back to see Remus raising an eyebrow at him.

"She told me that 'they' were in the Room of Requirement last night. Told me how to get in, no one was there." He muttered angrily. Remus nodded absently and then gestured out towards the portrait hole. They all exited the four of them, miffed about not being able to learn who was responsible for their embarrassment the first week of term.

Once they had reached the Great Hall, James spotted Evans sitting down at the furthest end of the table. He motioned to Remus, but his friend grabbed his arm and shook his head, before leading him away to their normal spot.

"She knows something!" James hissed. "Why—"

"Because you're getting nowhere with the girl. You're just going to get her angry, and if…IF...she knows anything, you're going to make her warn whoever the group is, therefore, making us targets once again." Remus answered, while starting to eat.

"Well, then what do you propose we do?" Sirius asked darkly. "Frankly, I'm sick of all these tricks that those annoying prats play on us!"

"I'll talk to her." Remus promised. "Hopefully that'll work, give me some time and I'll try and see if I can get anything out of her. But you two, stay away from her and her mates." They both nodded. While Remus was definitely the nicest of the group, he had this uncanny ability to read girls, came in handy quite often.

James shot one more look at the redhead. He wanted answers and he wanted them now. No one made fools of him and his friends; they were the ones who no one messed with. Unfortunately it didn't help much when you didn't know who you were fighting against.

* * *

That evening, Lilly was somewhat behind in her work, so she gathered up her books and put them into her satchel before heading down to the kitchens during dinner. Parker asked if she wanted company, but Lilly shook her head explaining that she needed time to actually get her work done. Laughingly the two girls parted ways.

"Miss Lilly!" a tiny voice squeaked. "How may I help you?"

"Hello Tabby." Lilly said smiling down at the house elf. "I was wondering if I could eat down here so I can get started on my homework." The house elf immediately began nodding and scampered off to get her some food, as Lilly headed over to the large couch that was in front of the fireplace.

A few moments later, Tabby had returned with a flagon of butterbeer and a gigantic tray containing a bowl of corn, next to a plate of fried chicken as well as a chocolate cake. Lilly yanked out her books, piling them onto the table next to her food, before opening her transfiguration homework. It was an essay about why it was dangerous to be an animangi. McGonagall had said that it was a practice essay for their O.W.L.'s.

It was ridiculously easy, and being that way, she got it out of the way first. But when Lilly had nearly finished it, the portrait swung open.

"Miss Evans," a voice said calmly. She looked up and saw Remus Lupin looking at her rather amused. "Why aren't you at dinner?" he asked sitting down next to her.

"I could ask you the same question." He raised an eyebrow as she turned back to her essay.

"What are you working on?" he asked quickly.

"Transfiguration Essay. Routine stuff, completely boring." Lilly said, before taking another drink. "Do you want something to drink?" she asked. He looked surprised. "Tabby?" she called. Instantly her favorite house elf appeared next to them.

"Yes Miss Lilly?" she asked grinning at the redhead.

"Could you get Mr. Lupin a butterbeer please?" she nodded and went off to get it, and within seconds had returned.

"Thank you." He said smiling at her. She nodded and told him your welcome before returning to her work. "So you know the house elves personally?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

"Tabby happens to be very sweet." Lilly answered scribbling something else down. "So, is there a reason you're not at dinner?" she asked not bothering to look up.

"Are you going to answer the question first?" he asked. "Or do I already know the answer?" Lilly raised an eyebrow.

"Probably. I mean, I think it's rather obvious after all." She said, finishing her essay and began to pull out her Ancient Runes.

"Ah, so it is because you're avoiding my dear friend Mr. Potter." At that Lilly's quill snapped in half. She looked up to see Remus smirking at her.

"Um no. I don't even know him, why would I be avoiding him? I am currently undertaking all my homework, for tomorrow, and since I have better things to do later on, I figured I'd work through dinner without actually missing it." During this explanation Lilly was fishing in her bag for that bag of pens seeing as that was her last quill.

"Keep telling yourself that." He answered smiling. Lilly looked at him, and then looked at her books. Really, did he need her to spell it out for him? She sneered, in her head.

"So why are you here?" She asked wearily, pulling the cap of the pen off and began scribbling away on her Ancient Runes Assignment.

"Er, what is that?" he asked pointing at the pen. she looked at it, and then at him.

"It's a pen." She answered, going back to her homework.

"A what?"

"A pen." Lilly repeated, staring at him in disbelief, and then she began cracking up. "Sorry, forgot that you're one of those pure bloods." His eyes flashed. "A pen is the muggle version of a quill. Actually it's better. It's a lot less messy."

He looked at it curiously, and she tossed it to him, before fishing another out of her bag.

"How do you write without ink?" he asked staring at it closely. Smothering her laughter Lilly rolled her eyes before explaining.

"The ink is inside it." The moment Lilly's words registered with him, his eyes widened in shock. "No you don't put it in. They sell it like that. The company that produces them puts the ink in an even smaller cylinder and then that's inside the pen."

He continued looking at in wonder, before finally trying to hand it back to her. She shook her head.

"Keep it. I can get more." Lilly went back to her work, before asking. "So why are you here exactly? Too many girls to fend off?" he smirked at her and shook his head.

"I was wondering about what you knew about them." He said. Lilly looked at him raising an eyebrow.

"Them? Want to be more specific?" She asked, smirking.

"You know what I'm talking about." He said. Lilly shook her head smiling. "I'm sorry, I really don't. You might want to elaborate."

After sighing aloud, he said, "those who pranked us the first week of term." Ah. Now we were getting somewhere. Lily shrugged again.

"I dunno. How should I?" She asked.

"Because, Miss Evans, I know that you have information about them." He said grinning as he leaned forward. Lilly stared at him wide-eyed. Was he? Yes he was.

"Okay, I'll tell you." she whispered, leaning in further. His eyes flashed with interest, and then pain as Lilly shoved all her books onto his nearest foot. He looked down and she leaned back grinning. "I'm sooo sorry!" she said as he started picking up all of her books.

"Honestly, no clue as to who it is or why they hate you so much. Perhaps your stealing their thunder? Or wait that's what this is about, they're outshining you." she whispered, looking at him again. His eyes narrowed at Lily, in a way that seemed that he was appraising her honesty.

"No. We simply want to repay them." He said. Lilly smirked.

"Listen, Lupin, aren't they supposed to be in Slytherin? Why are you bugging me, when I'm in your own house?' At this his eyes widened.

"You are quite perceptive." He answered. Lilly made a face at him, unsure of whether it was the excuse or just a compliment. I keep to myself, I am a shy mouse, who just happens to get angry when provoked, she thought.

"Hence, why I'm top of our class." She said grinning, before taking another bite of dinner. "So how's the Quidditch team this year?"

"Dunno. James hasn't had tryouts yet." He answered. "That's the very reason we wanted to talk with you, because your top of the year. if they're a younger student, then obviously, they must have talked with you about certain spells." she shook her head.

"Prefect."

"I'm sorry?" he asked, his eyes clouding in confusion.

"I'm a prefect. I'm not going to help people with pranks. Obviously, no one has approached me or I would have turned them in, after that prank was pulled. I mean after all, we wouldn't want anything to happen to you and your three friends." Lilly said her voice turning into a mock at the last line.

"I'm a prefect." He said glaring at her.

"Sorry, let me rephrase that, I'm a prefect t that actually follows the rules." Lily said smirking.

"Miss Evans, we both know that you don't follow the rules." He said. "Have you forgotten where we are?"

"There's no rule relating to the kitchens at all." Lilly shot back. "Otherwise, they'd guard it better. Besides, you know that Professor Dumbledore views things, like, 'if your intelligent enough to discover it, it shouldn't be off limits." At this Remus' eyebrows shot up even further.

"Very perceptive."

"Not really. I just listen to his speeches." Lilly answered. "Now. Anything I can help you with?" she asked sweetly.

"Well, I'm curious as to why you lied to James, about the Room of Requirement, if you don't know anything."

Lilly waved the question off. "Easy. He was annoying me. I lied to him so I could continue my work. Not my fault that he couldn't see that. Although he did break his nose by running into a shield charm." she mused. At that Remus began laughing.

"When?" he asked.

"Erm—like second week? I dunno. Whenever you guys started up with this whole, 'Lilly-Evans-knows-who-pranked-us-amazingly-well plot. I was practicing spells, and I wanted quiet, so I had two shield charms and two silencer charms set up in the library so that I wouldn't disturb anyone and vice-versa. In fact I didn't even realize he ran into it. I was leaving and he stood up with a bloody nose." At this Remus erupted into laughter.

"I shall definitely have to ask him about that." He said grinning. Lilly shrugged. The boy must have taken my advice and gone and saw Madam Pomfrey after all. The thought had came out of nowhere, causing her to smile.

"Now, out of curiosity. Will you lot be leaving me alone?" Remus looked down, and picked up yet another book.

"Better yet, why do you have a sixth year's book?" he asked. Lilly looked at it and took it from him.

"It's mine." Lilly answered quickly. "Bought it a year early. Saved money that way." But she could tell he didn't believe her. Surprising really, seeing as it's the only truth I've told this evening, well besides the bit about Potter, Lilly thought.

"Sure. Where was this sale? Flourish and Blokes?" she nodded as he handed it back to her. He raised an eyebrow, obviously not believing her.

"Now, are you guys going to leave me alone?" Lily repeated, raising an eyebrow in response to his. To her dismay, he simply grinned.

"Why would any of us want to do that?" he asked smirking. "I mean, Evans, your quite good looking." Lilly rolled my eyes. While she knew she wasn't bad looking, she wasn't exactly what you'd call 'good looking.

"Have you been snorting coke?" Lilly asked bluntly, unfortunately all this did was confuse the guy. She rolled her eyes. At least my friends would have gotten that. She thought to herself.

"I'm sorry." Lilly shook her head, finishing up her homework, before shoving everything back into her bag.

"Don't worry about it." Lilly said standing up. "I've got to go." Turning around, she looked for the familiar bow between the house elf's ears. "Tabby?" Lilly called, she immediately popped up in front of her.

"Yes Miss Lilly?" she asked as Lilly grinned at her.

"I have to go, so I just wanted to say thank you." Tabby turned bright pink and waved her off.

"No trouble at all Miss Lilly. Have a good day." Lilly nodded and waved goodbye as she slid out the portrait hole. To Lilly's dismay, Lupin followed. She would give them credit that they were persistent. Although she struggled not to erupt into laughter as they continued to believe that she merely had some valuable information. They walked along in an uneasy silence, Lilly quite content to leave it that way. Mr. Lupin however did not feel the same.

"listen; if you're worried about them coming after you, I can assure you that they wouldn't." Lilly snorted. She could ensure that quite easily herself. "Seriously." He said looking at her, she stopped walking and sighed.

"Lupin. I appreciate the gesture, but not only do I not know anything, but what makes you so sure that you could protect me from them. Better yet, why would any of you want to?" Lilly asked. She was rather curious as for his answer, although she'd love to see his expression if she just blurted out the truth. Oh, he'd never believe me anyways. She thought.

Lilly never heard that answer, because at that moment Ashton skidded out of the wall and into Remus. Lilly jumped backwards as they catapulted into the floor, with his arms, protectively around Ashton. After a moment, Ashton squinted an eyelid open, and squeaked, "Lilly!" jumping out of Remus' arms, without even giving him a glance.

"I'm so glad that I found you!!" she said grinning from ear to ear. Lilly returned her grin, already knowing what she was about to say.

"What'd you find?" she asked. Ashton's mouth plummeted.

"How'd you know?" she asked surprised.

"Because I know you. You only get this excited when you've found some new room in the castle that no one knows about, or if you've just landed your triple axel that you've been working on for ages." at the mention of that her eyes lit up.

"You, have a gift Lilly. I'm sure that Professor Renaldi is highly disappointed that you never took Divination. But yes, I found yet another amazing place. Add it to the list of millions. This one I know will be your favorite. It's near the Astronomy Tower. But you won't believe it; I actually did land my triple axel!!!" Lilly's jaw dropped. She had been teasing her.

"Seriously? You've been working on that for ages!" Lilly said smiling.

"I know. Nearly broke my ankle four hundred times trying to do it. But that's one thing that's nice of the Room of Requirement, endless amount of space for pirouettes and all that." Ashton suddenly paused. "DO you think we could try and freeze the lake upstairs, and go ice skating on it?" she asked suddenly. Lilly erupted into laughter, and began shaking her head.

"Ashton, you do realize that the temperature would make that impossible. I mean, it's the Caribbean! That's why we like it. If you want to go ice skating, just go on the black lake once it actually does freeze over." Lilly said choking on waves of laughter.

"I know, but it'd be nice to be able to go ice skating whenever I want. Like at three am or something." Lilly nodded in agreement. "But I do like that island…" Ashton added as an afterthought.

"What are you going on about?" Lupin finally asked, staring in wonder at the girl who had tackled him to the ground, and then hadn't even bothered acknowledging his presence. "There is no lake in this castle." He was quite sure of that. The Marauders' would have found it.

"Yes there is." Ashton said, not bothering to glance at him. "Lilly, I need to show you the newest addition!!!" she said urgently. "You will not regret this." Lilly nodded, and allowed herself to be pulled into the wall, that encased the secret spiral staircase that went towards the astronomy tower.

"So, when am I going to get to see this triple axel that you can now pull off?" Lilly asked Ashton, both girls not realizing that Remus was trailing them. "Do you realize how excited your mum will be?"

"I know. I've been working on it for ages." Ashton said breathlessly as they continued climbing stairs. "We'll find either an extremely large classroom or just go to the room of requirement. Where ever I won't hit someone." She said laughing at the memory of when a second year had walked around a corner as she'd been doing turns.

Once they hit the landing, Ashton led the way down the corridor and stopped at a wall. Glancing at Lilly she nodded and then walked through. Lilly grinned and followed her. They walked down another flight of stairs and then came out on the largest balcony they'd seen.

"Wow." Lilly whispered. "It's spectacular." Ashton seemed rather pleased with herself.

"See, now we all three have places we utterly love. You have this, I have the lake, and Parker has—" she stopped suddenly and looked behind Lilly. She followed the suit and realized they'd never gotten rid of Remus. They all stared at each other for a moment.

"Er—how'd you find this?" he asked suddenly. Ashton shrugged before answering.

"Fell through the wall. Happens all the time." At that he gaped. "Better question. Why are you following us?"

"Um. Well, I was with Lilly when you made the announcement." He sputtered. While Lilly rolled her eyes.

"No. Better explanation." Lilly interrupted. "Lilly was doing homework, while being interrogated by Lupin here." Ashton raised her eyebrow at Lily, who brushed a hand across her forehead. Answering Ashton's silent question with a yes. A code that they'd created in first year.

"Why were you interrogating Lilly?" Ashton asked, not missing a beat.

"I wasn't. We were having a conversation. I'm sorry if you felt like I was interrogating you Miss Evans." He said grinning at Lilly, who simply shrugged.

"Well, love to stay and chat, but we've got places to go, Parker to see." Ashton said, grabbing Lilly's hand and dragging her out of there. They booked it back to the Common Room. Once they'd reached the stairs, they dashed up to their dorm.

"You had dinner with Remus Lupin?" Ashton shrieked. Lilly shrugged and nodded. "What happened?" At that Lilly immediately began retelling the story, which had them rolling with laughter.

"Remember when we had to explain a pen to Parker?" Ashton howled. Lilly nodded and they continued giggling, before finally falling asleep.

* * *

**Thursday October 15**

"You're sure she knows something?" Sirius asked, as the three of them watched her from across the library. Remus nodded, not taking his eyes off of her.

"She definitely knows who's behind it. When I offered her protection from the repercussions of spilling, she asked what made me think that we could." Remus answered. "Meaning she's obviously to terrified to talk." James nodded as he continued to stare at her.

"Is there any way to wrangle it out of her?" Sirius asked looking at his two best mates. "I mean, we have to be able to do something…" at that he grinned.

"Prongs, why don't you go talk to her?" he asked suddenly.

"Huh?" James asked not tearing his eyes off of her as she brushed her hair back out of her face.

"We need information." Sirius prodded. "Go do what you do best. You obviously have the charm to do that. Not to mention you want to more than me." He said grinning. Remus nodded his agreement, and James grinned.

"Better hurry, she's packing up." Remus added. James hastily threw his bag over his shoulder and hurried over to her table.

* * *


	3. Chapter 3

_Okay, Several of you, will probably be annoyed. I am working on an update, one that I am getting excited about while I write it. But I realized that this is kind of hard to read, so I'm going to split up Chapter one, so that it's not quite as long, and so that no one misses any important information. I hope you guys enjoy the story._

**The Prank**

Lilly jumped as Potter announced his arrival. She rolled her eyes, and glanced upward at him.

"Hello Evans, I was wondering if I could talk to you for a minute." He said smirking at her.

"Well seeing as I'm going to hear it anyways…" she muttered.

"Good." He said grinning at her spunk. "Seeing as it's a Hogsmeade weekend, I've decided that I'd ask you, before I'm attacked by all the girls in this school." He said grinning. To his surprise, she started laughing at him.

"Nice one." She sputtered. "Hilarious. Not the normal prank, but I can see the merit." Lilly was still chortling as she walked past him.

"Did…what....what just happened?" he asked confused. The other two looked at him, as they joined his new position in the library.

"Bugger." Sirius said. "This may be harder than it looks." The other two nodded. "but hey, at least she didn't say no. She was probably in too much shock." James grinned and nodded.

.

The three friends wandered back to the common room to kill sometime before dinner. That consisted mostly of Sirius making out with a blonde fourth year and Peter picking up some sixth year. odd right? They headed down to dinner together, smirking as they had a plan. They had made sure that they arrived a few moments later than they normally do. After all, the Marauders were in need of a grand entrance.

"Ready?" Peter asked. James nodded with a smirk on his face. "Okay." He said. Remus walked inside, followed by Peter, heading all the way down to the far end of Gryffindor table. Where three girls were sitting. Lilly Evans, her spastic friend Ashton and another girl. Lilly was sitting to the right of Ashton and the third girl was sitting across from Ashton. Peter sat down next to the third, while Remus took the seat next to Lilly.

The three girls exchanged wary glances. All three glancing at the two newcomers. Peter merely smiled, as did Remus, before trying to strike up a conversation. Seemingly oblivious to the entire table of Gryffindors that were glaring down at the three girls, in shock. But all that was wiped away, when a magnified voice echoed over the Great Hall. Everyone turned to see Sirius Black standing in the doorway smiling.

"Professor Dumbledore, I'd like to apologize for disturbing the meal. But my friend Jamsie here has a request to make." Everyone swiveled to look at the popular student before glancing at Dumbledore, who merely looked bemused, and gave a slight nod of his head.

"Why thank you Sirius, Professor." James said, taking over. He was currently walking on top of Gryffindor table. Lilly shot a glance at Remus, while raising an eyebrow. "It has come to my attention that I need to inquire of a certain matter to a friend of mine." At this everyone stared at Remus, who simply shrugged.

"No. Not you Remus." James quipped.

"Ouch! " Remus called, "That hurts mate!"

"Don't worry, we're still close friends." James said grinning, heading towards the area in which Lilly, Ashton, and Parker sat. "But I do want to speak with that lovely maiden next to you…." At this Lilly looked on the other side of Lupin. Confused when she realized that there wasn't a girl sitting next to him.

"….a Miss Lilly Evans." At that, she merely gaped, she tried to look at Parker, but she was blocked by a pair of muscular legs. Her eyes trailed up to see James Potter standing in front of her.

"Is there a reason you're standing in my food?" she asked loudly. At this everyone began chuckling.

"Why, yes, yes there is." He said smiling. "Miss Lillykins," her eyes narrowed dramatically. "I wanted to inquire if you'd be interested in joining me on a romantic endeavor to Hogsmeade." He smirked at Lily, as if already knowing the answer. Lilly was silent for a moment, before standing up. Remus, anticipating what she was about to do, grabbed her wrist.

"I swear if you don't let go, you will regret it Lupin." Lilly snarled. Actually listening to her for once, he released said wrist and she stood up.

"Well, my dear Lillykins?" Potter asked once more. Without saying a word, she turned and stormed out of the Great Hall. Unfortunately, this is why they had Sirius stationed there.

"Evans, don't be like that." He said easily, trying to stop her. But Lilly was beyond angry and muttered in her head, "Levicorpus." The result was instantaneous. Black was being dangled in the air, as she dashed by, and she let him down the moment she'd passed. Lilly ran straight to the balcony that Ashton had shown her.

She sank into one of the chaise lounges, staring out over the Black Lake, and beyond. Why? What was the whole point of this? She snorted. Obviously humiliation. She felt a few tears trickle down her face. Just because she'd never had a boyfriend…this entire school figured that she could be used for a laugh.

"Lilly?" she looked up at the stairwell, as her name was called. Ashton and Parker were walking towards her slowly. "Lilly are you okay?" Parker asked softly. Lilly nodded silently as the two engulfed her into a hug.

"Why would he do that?" Lilly asked. "What's the point of embarrassing me?" she cried. After awhile her tears subsided and they just sat in silence. "I feel that it's been far too long since the last prank." She said suddenly. Parker grinned.

"Excellent. I'm guessing the target would be…"

"You're absolutely right." Lilly said. Ashton grinned and gave her another hug.

"Oh, you're supposed to go see Professor Dumbledore." Ashton said suddenly. "He told us after we started to leave and come get you. Wonder why." Lilly snorted.

"What?" they asked.

"Did you not notice how Sirius somehow started floating in midair, before he was dropped onto his head?" Lilly asked dryly. Parker nodded slowly.

"Erm-I figured he'd just tripped or something." Ashton said. The three of the burst into laughter. "but come on, we don't want to keep him waiting." With that the trio began the long trek to see their headmaster.

* * *

"Ah, ladies, please come in." Professor Dumbledore said as they knocked upon his office door. "I take it you would like these two to be present?" he asked Lilly. She nodded. "Very well, please, please have a seat." The all complied, glancing around the office with interest.

"Now. About dinner." He said. Lilly bit back a shudder. "I am sorry for Mr. Potter's lack of, well what normal people would call tact. But I was curious as to how long you've been able to perform unspoken spells." Lilly blinked in surprise.

"Erm—I'm not sure. I started studying them this summer; I guess I didn't start practicing them until we got back to Hogwarts." She answered after a moment of thinking about it.

"Well, let me commend you on being able to at your fifth year. That is quite a feat as is taking Mr. Black by surprise." Lilly felt herself turn pink. "Originally I had wondered if your encounter with Miss Black was accidental, I can see now that even more talented than I had originally thought. As are your two friends here."

They all began muttering thank you, each turning a nice shade of pink. Lilly was wondering where this was going.

"Miss Evans, I wanted to let you know that there will be a ball in November. Due to your well executed escape, you missed the announcement." Professor Dumbledore smiled at the girls, as they all nodded and thanked him before heading back to their common room.

The moment they were in the hallway, they all stared at each other in shock. It took a few minutes before they found their voices.

"Did what I think just happen…happen?" Lilly asked, wide eyed.

"He just congratulated you on hexing Sirius Black; any other teacher would have given you detention!" Parker whispered hoarsely. At this they all erupted into giggles. "Professor Dumbledore is the best teacher here." They all hurried up to the common room. Lilly paused outside the portrait hole.

"You guys fancy a swim?" she asked, as the other two started climbing through. Ashton grinned and opened her mouth, but Lilly began shaking her head. "We're not going to freeze it." She said grinning as Ashton's shoulders drooped.

"Caribbean?" Parker asked as they made their way across the common room. The other two girls grinned. "What's the latest idea?" she asked warily.

"Well, Ash here would like to freeze said lake and go ice skating." Parker smirked at this, before shaking her head.

"You realize that would be impossible right?" Parker asked while Ashton scowled at her two friends. "Just go skate on the Black Lake."

Lilly grinned. "That's what I said." With this the girls finished climbing the stairs and slipped their bathing suits on beneath their uniforms that they had still been wearing before heading back down the stairs. They were still chortling about Ashton's lake idea as they passed the couch, not realizing one Remus Lupin was laying down. The moment the portrait had swung shut once more, he dashed upstairs to find Sirius with a girl.

"Oi!" Sirius yelped. "Privacy!" Remus shook his head and glared at him. With that, the unlucky fourth year got booted from the dorm. "What's this about?"

"You up for a bit of exploration?" Remus asked while fishing out the map. Sirius grinned, and a moment later James came through the door.

"What's going on?" he asked, as he realized that his two friends were pouring over the map.

"Our dear friend Evan and company are apparently going swimming." Remus answered. His two friends' eyes narrowed in confusion. "They're claiming that there's a lake on the fifth floor. I'm wondering if there's any truth." He said.

"Let's go."

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Completely unaware that they were being followed, the three girls merrily walked down to the fifth floor, west wing. The continued meandering into the hallway, until they reached a large portrait of three mermaids, who were all sunbathing. Upon seeing the girls, they all began waving.

"Care for a swim?" one called giggling. Lilly grinned at the humor.

"Why yes." She answered.

"Where exactly?" the blonde mermaid asked.

"Tortuga." The moment Lilly said the word; the portrait flipped upwards, unlike the normal portraits, and revealed a sunlit room, covered in sand. "Sweetness." Lilly murmured as they clambered inside. The three girls spent several hours there, quite unaware that they'd been followed and shared one of their many secrets.

Wednesday October 22

Ancient Runes was one of Parker's favorite classes. She sat near Lilly, and luckily the Marauders weren't enlisted in this class, well with the exception of Lupin. Luckily he actually took this class seriously, so they were actually able to enjoy it. Today however was different. This was perhaps the one day that Parker was dying to be in a Marauder class or at least just a class with Potter and Lilly together. After waiting a few days, in order to avoid suspicion, although Potter had been annoying her even more lately, the three girls had decided that they had waited long enough and had pulled their prank, er rather revenge on him.

Lilly was still a bit upset, so it wasn't exactly pleasant. Anytime he tried to talk to a girl, or about a girl, words wouldn't come out. Instead, he'd either croak or snort, with an occasional frog climbing out of his mouth. But what was really funny was when he either mentioned Lilly's name or try to talk to her. For the former, a daddy longlegs would crawl out of his mouth, and for the latter, a flock of birds would swarm at him.

Transfiguration was quite entertaining, because Professor McGonagall would constantly call on him throughout all of her classes. Although, the only answer she'd get today were croaks. This got on her last nerve and she hadn't seem to notice the triangle dancing above his head. Needless to say, James Potter's day was not a happy one, at least for him. This of course only infuriated the marauders even further, and sadly, the only lead they had was Lilly. Although the three girls constantly found this quite funny, due to their disbelief that it could be her and her friends.

Since it was such a nice day, Lilly and Parker had opted to study outside under a nice beech tree by the lake. They had gotten through a large portion of the section when they realized that someone was coming up. Figuring it was Ashton, they didn't bother looking up, merely continuing their work. Eventually they heard a rather loud, "ahem"

"Nice try Ashton. Sit down and work." Parker said, scribbling across her parchment, not tearing her eyes from it.

"I'm sorry; I'm unfamiliar with this Ashton that you speak of." Both girls froze and looked up to see Sirius Black standing in front of them.

"Can we help you?" Lilly asked hesitantly.

"Listen Evans. Just give us the names. After that—" the two girls didn't hear whatever he was about to say, for Lily had cast an unspoken silencing charm. Both girls continued watching him, and when nothing else came out, they went back to their work. After a bit, they realized that he was still there.

Suppressing a grin, Parker looked up at him. "Listen. If you don't have anything to say, leave. You're not wanted here." The boy seemed rather shocked at her words as well as her tone. But a moment later he stormed back up to the castle. The two girls began laughing once he was out of ear shot.

"I'm pretty sure he's never been told to go away by a girl before." Lilly said grinning. Parker shrugged and then smirked.

"Have I mentioned how much I love your charms skills, lately?" Lilly nodded and grinned again. But then Parker sobered up. "How long do you think we can fly under the radar?"

Lilly shrugged. "We've been doing fine. I mean Potter hasn't really approached me, although that might be more to do with the birds….but as long as they stay away from us, while everyone else is watching, there's no reason to suspect that we won't continue to be losers." She said smirking over at her friend.

"Let's hope so. I enjoy not having to worry about keeping up an appearance. I don't know how they all do it." She said glancing up at the castle. "Seems like a waste of energy."

"Yep. Think of all that time they could be pulling pranks." Lilly said yawning, while she stretched her arms over her head.

"Speaking of which. I believe we need to do something with the Slytherins. I believe we owe Bellatrix, for that day by the lake." Parker said sitting up and grinning. "Something that truly hits home."

"You want to hit their common room." Lilly said smiling at her friend. Parker nodded slowly. "They'll certainly panic. That'll probably make them think that we're in their house."

"Yeah, so it'll help. Remember last time when we decorated it in Gryffindor colors." Lilly nodded.

"They were highly upset. I remember the Marauders being angry that we beat them to it. That's why it helps to cast muffliato when contemplating plans." Lilly said giggling. But her laughter evaporated when a large shaggy dog sprinted over, and started to try and climb into Parker's lap.

"Honestly, how idiotic do they think we are?" she hissed, looking disdainfully at Sirius in his animangus form. But she started scratching his ear, and he flopped down further into her lap. Lilly shrugged as she looked at the dog disdainfully.

"Oh, Sneakers apparently has a thing for laying on sheets of paper." Lilly said as she continued writing. "Every time I try to write, she starts using them as a bed. It's cute, but it can get annoying." She said grinning at the memory. Parker began laughing.

"Yeah, I also found her in my trunk the other day. I had to fish her out. I think she fell in off my bed, but the it's too deep for her to climb back out." Lilly began smirking. "She's the cutest little thing." The two girls began grinning, when Lilly decided it was time to plant a false trail.

"Remember that conversation we had a while ago…about what to do about the problem?" Lilly asked suddenly. Parker raised an eyebrow at this and lilly gave a slight nod of her head.

"Yeah…" Parker answered slowly. "What about it?" dog had completely stopped all movements.

"Well, I think we should do it." She said grinning. "I mean come on Parker, it's not like they'll be expecting it." Parker smirked at her and nodded.

"That's true. I mean everyone thinks they're a bunch of Slytherins, wouldn't they freak out if they found out that they were from all of the houses?" Lilly nodded, hiding her smirk as Parker continued talking. "We could always gate crash the meeting tonight. I mean, it's in the Astronomy tower at Midnight. So it's not like anyone will catch us, or them."

At this, the big black dog bounded away, running off towards the castle. Both girls grinned at one another as they watched it disappear inside, before bursting with laughter.

"That was brilliant!" Parker gasped.

"I know, but the only problem is that they're going to start interrogating you now." Lilly said sobering.

"Yeah, but oh well. It's not like either of us will talk. Besides, I wonder how long it'll take him to realize that he's still got a silencing charm on?" she answered giggling, as Lilly smiled before gathering her things up.

"Come on. I've got a brilliant idea." With that Parker quickly scrambled to her feet after Lilly. They both hurried up the steps before arriving in front of a door covered with a lists of illicit contraband. In the center, there was a name plate that had "Argus Filch" scrawled into it. Lilly knocked hesitantly, before the door swung open.

"Can I help you ladies?" Filch growled looking up at them suspicisously. Lilly nodded breathlessly, a look of worry creasing her brow.

"Mr. Flich, I….I…don't know how to say this, but we have information…" she said. Parker immediately started nodding.

"About?" he asked, his tone filled with curious along with the same old suspicion. Lilly shot a wary glance up and down the hallway.

"We overheard a group of students planning to sneak out and meet up in the Astronomy Tower at Midnight tonight." She said quickly, causing Filch's eyes to light up. "We don't want anyone hurt, so we felt that we should inform the authorites."

"Good. You ladies have done, well. I don't expect anything less of a prefect. Don't tell anyone you've told me." He instructed before scurrying back into his office. The two girls hurried away, the moment they'd reached another hallway, they erupted into laughter.

"I cannot believe you thought of that!" Parker said giggling. "That was brilliant."

Lilly shrugged. "They need to learn to get better ways of spying. I mean seriously, I was tempted to make him reveal himself, but I think this worked out better." She said grinning.

"Come on, let's go find Ashton." Parker said heading towards the common room. The two girls continued chortling as they climbed into the portrait hole, and upon seeing Sirius Black yelling silently at the other Marauders, died even further. Unfortunately the three boys noticed them and scurried over.

"What did you do to him?" Peter asked, looking worried at his friend. Lilly stared at him, trying to stop chuckling.

"Excuse me?" she asked softly. "What makes you think we had anything to do with it?" The boys all began hedging and then James decided to voice his opinon.

"We saw him talking to you by the lake."

"Why would any of you try to talk to us?" Parker asked raising an eyebrow. "Sure he was standing there for a moment, but we weren't talking. We figured he was meeting you three there." The boys recoiled at her tone.

"Excuse us." Lilly said acid lining her quiet voice. She linked arms with Parker and the two of them continued walking towards the girls' staircase. Once they'd reached their rooms, they started giggling again. That's when Lilly heard a soft mewing coming from Parker's trunk.

"I think she fell in again." Lilly said as she bent over and retrieved her gorgeous kitten Sneakers. Petting her, she sat down on her four poster and looked over at Parker. "I'm really surprised that they hadn't taken the charm off."

"I don't think they even recognized it." Parker said grinning. "I mean, they did ask 'what' we did. Guess Lupin is the brains of that operation."

Lilly rolled her eyes. "Honestly, we found that out years ago. Especially after listening into half their plans." A moment later a few of their dorm mates wandered into the room. Lilly jerked her head towards the doorway and Parker nodded as they both stood up. They'd always been able to read each other as well as themselves, and silent conversations were not uncommon. It was the same with all three girls. They headed down stairs and settled into a couch by the fireplace.

"Well, you must admit, this year has certaintly been quite interesting." Parker said as Lilly continued petting Sneakers. "I mean, how many times have you been asked out now?" Lilly scowled at her before answering.

"Twice. Thankfully he's dropped it." She said glaring at the thought of him. "I mean the first time was funny. The second time was humiliating. I mean he did it in front of the entire school. Even if he was serious, what girl would want to be asked out that way?" Parker shrugged.

"I don't know. I nearly hexed him after you left though. I thought it'd be better to go after you though." She said, as a small smile began to appear on Lilly's face. "The best part was when you levitated Black. Where'd you learn that spell anyways?"

"My potions partner, Severus." Lilly answered shrugging. "We're on good terms, although we don't really communicate outside of class, we used to hang out during summers. But other than that…" she said shrugging.

"Did he make it up?" Lilly nodded. "Cool. Now speaking of Slytherins…" But lilly shook her head and then glanced around the room. She spotted the Marauders muttering in a far corner, bent over parchment, but no one else was in the common room. Pulling out her wand, she pointed it at them and whispered, "Muffliato" before nodding for Parker to continue.

"Another one from Severus?"

"Yep. Quite handy. They can't hear us, all they get is a buzzing noise in their ears." Lilly explained while Parker smiled appreciatively.

"Okay, I kind of was thinking of going extremely basic and using a muggle type prank." She said grinning at Lilly's interest. "I mean afterall, they are crazily obsessed with being pure and all that." But lilly was grinning from ear to ear. "Okay, what, tell me before you erupt."

"Ever hear of post it notes?" Parker grinned and leaned back as Lilly pulled out her wand and summoned a small package of paper from her room. "I've had these, for awhile. My sister bought them for me as a birthday present to be mean."

"What do they do?" Parker asked curiously.

"Well, they're used to write down reminders, and they have an edge that is sticky so that you can put it somewhere you can see it, and won't forget, hence, 'post it notes.' But when I was younger, I saw a television show that had a room completely covered in post its." Lilly explained. At that Parker's face lit up in a grin.

"Can you make them stick on people?" she asked grinning.


	4. Chapter 4

_Okay, Several of you, will probably be annoyed. I am working on an update, one that I am getting excited about while I write it. But I realized that this is kind of hard to read, so I'm going to split up Chapter one, so that it's not quite as long, and so that no one misses any important information. I hope you guys enjoy the story._

**The Prank**

**Tuesday, October 28**

"Okay, come on." Ashton whispered as the three crept down to the dungeons. From the moment she'd heard the word Slytherins and Post it Notes, she'd adored the plan. She knew that this would be by far the best prank that they had ever pulled. Not only was it completely cheesy, in a muggle type way, but they had added a few extra's as well. Once they entered the dungeons, she whispered a spell to put anyone who was in the common room asleep, before they themselves walked in.

Parker quickly consolted the Marader's Map that they had "borrowed," and saw that a few students were asleep, sprawled on the floor and the couches, only about three. Lilly cast 'mufliato' at the dorms as well as those sleeping as an extra precaution.

"You, know, I must say, I like the effect of the lake in here. It's somewhat pretty." Parker said grinning.

"You just like the color green." Ashton said shaking her head to hide a smirk. "but come on, we need to hurry. We don't want to get caught down here." With that Lilly pulled out the small package of post its and set them on the floor between the three girls. She quickly duplicated them into the eight large stacks and then changed the color of each stack, in order to hide the house that they were in, the three girls had included blue, green, and gold in addition to red, for the post its.

A moment later and Lilly added the charm to write a few messages on them. Most of them went along the lines of, "Mudbloods Rule," and "Kill Me, I'm a purist." They had intended them to be cheesy, knowing that the Slytherins would abhor this prank all the more because of it. After she had finished, she nodded to the other two, as they pulled out their wands, but she yelped before they did anything.

"Sorry! I almost forgot." After muttering a final enchantment, she nodded and they all began to cover every inch of the room, including the three students that were asleep. They continued working, starting in the far corner and backing towards the portrait hole as they went. Seconds before they exited, they took a few pictures. They had plans for that.

At the last moment, Ashton began to draw a triangle in the middle of the air. A second later a large blue triangle erupted from her wand and floated into the middle of the room. She signed her initials in the right corner as her to friends added their own as well.

After that they all ducked out of the room, after taking one final picture and taking their muffling spells off. They hurried back to Gryffindor Tower, in a merry silence, hardly able to wait for the following morning.

The Great Hall was in an uproar when James and Sirius walked down to breakfast the next morning. They were in a state of confusion when they came across a student covered in small squares of colored paper.

"What on earth?" James asked, while Sirius simply shrugged. They continued walking, both staring oddly at where the student disappeared. But once they reached the Great Hall, they were both in shock. The entire Slytherin house was covered in multi-colored pieces of paper, every single person looking entirely upset. No one had to ask the cause, the familiar triangle was hovering above the table, the initials shining brightly in silver letters.

The entire school was dying with laughter as the ridiculous looking Slytherins kept trying to sneak in. James and Sirius were cracking up, until they realized that they'd been beaten. As they made their way over to their usual spot they both began plotting of ways to get them back. The Marauders were not going to lose.

"Do you really think that they are in Slytherin, or are in all four houses, like the girls said?" Sirius asked looking over at the paper-clad students. "I mean, how else did they get in if some one didn't let them in?"

James shrugged. "I dunno, I mean, it'd explain a lot if they had a person in each of the houses, but who would that even qualify, and why is there only three sets of initials?" Sirius looked upset as he began pouring syrup over his twelve pancakes. "either way, I'd like to thank them before getting back at them."

"True. This prank is quite amazing." Sirius said a smirk returning. After breakfast they headed off to their first class in which an owl flew in and dropped an envelope in James' lap. He didn't recognize the handwriting on the envelope. In fact he'd never seen it before in his life, it didn't even look like handwriting. More like something off of a compskuter, or whatever that thing was called in Muggle Studies.

Opening up the envelope, he reached in and found a note saying,

_Prongs, Padfoot, Moony, and Wormtail,_

_We figured that you Marauders would enjoy these. Documented proof of something you haven't seen. In case you are wondering, this is the Slytherin Common Room._

_"Enjoy coming in second place yet again?" –PE_

_"Don't tease them, it's not nice, no matter how true it is. After all they did have a few cute things up their sleeves, no matter how childish it is. I must admit that when they enchanted all of the statues to start singing of their love for Severus Snape was quite entertaining, however mean it might've been. –HB_

_"But I must chime in the fact that they seem to think they can beat us year after year after year….well, you get the idea. Basically, we enjoy the competition between the two of us, all we ask is that you step it up, several notches. –MR_

_Remember, "Wit beyond measure, is man's greatest treasure."_

James stared at the letter in shock. They knew about the nicknames? But he shook his head as he slid the rest of the contents out of the envelope. The moment he saw the dozen snap shots, he started howling in laughter, regardless of Professor Flitwick yelling at him. He quickly tried to stifle it as he passed the note to his mates. He pulled a picture out of the stack and passed it around the room. Student all began snickering as they caught a glimpse at it.

After class ended, everyone began pouring out of the room. But James motioned for the Marauders to hang back. Lilly Evans was still putting her things away as she waved her two friends off. Saying that she'd meet them at lunch. The moment that the class room was empty, Lilly had finally been able to get the last of her stuff put away and had started towards, the door, but James snagged her by the arm, as Peter shut the door.

"Miss Evans." Sirius said pleasantly as they all surrounded her. Her eyes flashed in annoyance.

"Let go of my arm Potter." She hissed. James instantly complied, since she couldn't really go anywhere seeing as the four of them had her surrounded. "What do you lot want?" she asked.

"We would like you to pass on a message for us." James answered smirking at her. But she simply rolled her eyes and snorted. "To them."

"Please remind me, exactly how many bludgers have hit you in the head? I don't know them, nor do I have any information on them. You gits need to get that through your thick heads!" she hissed. Her deep emerald eyes narrowing like slits.

"Oh, Miss Evans, we're not stupid. You know far more than your letting on." Remus said quietly, a smirk playing at his lips. "But we'd just like you to pass a message on."

"Why didn't you send one back with the bird, that brought you the first one?" she asked warily.

"How do you know about the message?" Sirius asked, in a triumphant voice. She rolled her eyes .

"Because you git, it's in Potters' hand. I'm not blind you know. Besides I did see and hear the bird fly through the window." Lilly was growing vastly upset by now. She was sick of playing this game, and she was rather hungry.

"Ooh, feisty." He answered smirking at her. "Just how I like them." Lilly bit back a grimace.

"Enough you two." James interrupted, "We just want to say that we're rather impressed with the whole pieces of paper deal." At this she started laughing. They all looked at her in confusion. "What?" he finally asked.

"Their called Post it Notes, or sticky notes by some." She said still giggling. At their curious and accusing glances she continued, "It's a muggle thing. Any halfblood or muggleborn will tell you that. By the way, if you want to respond, why don't you actually tell them."

"We're trying to." Peter answered impatiently. But Lilly rolled her eyes.

"Oh, please, stop putting on this façade of, 'Evans—please—give –us—all –the—Information—you—possibly—have –on –our –enemy –who –outwit –us –at –every –turn." She ignored their scowls of protest at her statement. "If you really want to know, stop wasting your time, bugging me, and actually open your eyes to the signs that they're giving you." As they all gave her blank looks she sighed exasperated.

"The triangle is what color?" she asked.

"Blue." Sirius answered.

"Very good." She said sarcastically. "What color is the writing? Better yet, the initials tell you everything. In addition to the other numerous signs. So stop playing this annoying game of annoy the hell out of Evans and let me get back to my reality." Lilly said before picking up her bag. She made to move past Sirius but he held fast.

"We're not finished." He said stubbornly.

"Yes, we are. Or do you want a repeat of last time?" she hissed. When he didn't seem to recall she pulled out her wand. At that his eyes widened in understanding, before narrowing as he pulled out his own.

"Do you really want to try that, Evans?" he asked. She smirked at him.

"Do you really want to risk it?" she snarled back. "You've never seen me duel, you however flaunt your talent like there's no tomorrow." At that she brushed past him, as he was in too much shock to stop her. They all were.

All four stared after her as she walked out of the room. They stood in silence before they finally started talking again.

"Okay, before we all fall to pieces and miss lunch, what exactly did she mean by the colors?" Peter asked. They all turned to him.

"Ravenclaw." Remus said quickly. "Ravenclaw's house colors are sapphire and silver. She's trying to point out that they're in Ravenclaw. That also fits with the last line of the letter. That's their house motto."

James nodded. "That certaintly makes sense. They've got to be brilliant. But the initials…hwo many kids have those initial, PE, MR, and HB?"

"There's a Maryanne Riveria, she's a sixth year. Made out with her last year. but she has a brother who's a seventh year by the name of Maxwell." Sirius offered.

"And there's a Harold Brethrens. They're both friends." Peter added. The four of them began to smirk as they headed towards lunch.

* * *

As Lilly scampered off to lunch, she was happy to see that Ashton and Parker had been duplicating the photos and enlarging them. The hallways were covered with them, hanging off walls, laying on the floor. Filch was going to have a field day cleaning this up. Lilly was in the best mood ever since she escaped from that group of boys.

One, they all were impressed with the prank, and they actually admitted it. Secondly, they now had the niggling that it was a bunch of Ravenclaws, so that Potter and his mates would finally start leaving her alone. The minute that she explained this to Ashton and Parker, all three girls had died with laughter. Marveling at how dense the boys actually were.

Two days later….

Parker was fixing her normally unruly hair as Ashton stated charming their stiletto heels. She had a French braid beginning on the right side of the crown of her had that trailed straight across to the left side, before disappearing. The rest of her hair was curled professionally and erupted, as if the braid was a tiara. The minute she finished, she called Lilly over so that she could fix hers. Lilly's vibrant red hair was pulled back and elegantly pinned up, her curls dying to break free. Parker allowed one long tendril to fall down Lilly's left shoulder, as her sideways bangs curled into her face. After that, she sent her off to finish getting dressed as she started Ashton's hair. She pulled it into a French twist, looking amazing with her natural highlights.

The girls were going to the Halloween Dance as Sprites. Parker's dress was a strapless sweetheart bodice, that was a vibrant Cerulean that was beaded with a blue bead. It ended in a ballet tutu, of a gauzy material. Unlike the other girls it was rather shorter. In the French braid, she had interwoven a blue freesia. Lilly's outfit of course was a bright green. Her dress was a halter top that was beaded as well, but her ballet skirt reached her knees, but the back of the bodice plunged to the small of the back. Ashton had opted for a magenta dress that was spaghetti strap, and her skirt was the same length as lilly's. she'd also chosen their shoes; they were all identical. A stiletto heel, that consisted of straps that went all the way up the girls' legs, to where their skirts ended. Each in the identical color as their dress.

When they were finally ready, unlike so many of the other girls in their dorm, they petted Sneakers one time, before heading downstairs. Oblivious to the stares they were getting from the boys in the common room, they continued laughing among themselves as they exited the portrait hole.

The Great Hall was decorated in Halloween colors, and had thousands of floating candles throwing off a dim light. All four tables were gone, but in the corners, there were small groupings of tables, and the teacher's table had been cut in half for food, that would continue to reappear. Music began playing once the three friends had gotten down there and everyone went crazy as they danced. During a break that Lilly and her two friends were taking to get something to drink, Severus Snape approached.

"Lilly," he said smiling. She returned the grin.

"Hey Severus. You know Ashton and Parker." He nodded and they all smiled saying hello.

"I was wondering if you'd like to dance," he asked, she smiled at him and nodded and waved to the other two. As he lead her out to the dance floor, they started chattering.

"So, how's term been for you?" she asked grinning.

"Fine. Loved how you embarrassed Bellatrix by the way." He grinned at her, and she felt herself go pink.

"It's not that big of a deal. I mean she was threatening my friend. Had to do something." She mumbled.

"Lilly, it is a big deal. But I must say as she was yelling about it in the common room, she did admit that she was impressed. How many fifth years can perform nonverbal spells?" he asked teasingly. Lilly shrugged.

"I'm amazing, I suppose." She said grinning. "But what about your guys' common room. How do you suppose they did that?"

Snape shrugged before smirking. "Whoever did it, I wanted to tell them they're hilarious. You should have seen everyone's faces. Bellatrix and her crew were livid. Especially when they tried to vanish them and they started flying at tehm, while still creating more to cover the walls." Lilly grinned at the awe in his voice.

"I wish I could have seen that." She said laughing.

"Oh, people took pictures. I'll sneak you some. But the best were when the notes started writing themselves onto those sticky notes things. All of the purists were cursing." He said with laughter in his voice.

They continued talking about various things, dancing for several songs before separating, with Lilly heading back to where Ashton and Parker had resumed taking yet another break. After she got back with the other girls, they told her that a Hufflepuff and a Ravenclaw had asked them to dance. The rest of the night passed with a series of merriment, for the entire school.

Well, nearly everyone.

* * *

James was sitting in the common room at two am, because he couldn't fall asleep for the life of him. He had enjoyed the dance, nearly as much as Sirius had. After all his date was a gorgeous Ravenclaw by the name of Ariella Manson. But as amazing as she was at dancing as well as snogging, he couldn't get his eyes off that spunky little redhead.

Evans looked utterly gorgeous in her green dress, James was struggling not to go pick her up and take her to a broom cupboard the entire night. Luckily for him, the room was dark, so Ariella didn't notice the dozens of times that he was looking at Evans. He nearly died in the common room when they waltzed down, he knew that Sirius did when he saw her friend, Mckinnons. The two had gaped at them, as did every other male that had been standing in the room. They hadn't even given them a glance, just waltzed right out of the portrait hole.

He wasn't used to feeling this way. James was always the one who was in control of the relationship. He and Sirius were constantly dating a variety of girls, although he didn't do it like Sirius did, having a different girl every week. But still, James had never been rejected by a member of the opposite sex, actually he'd had a few guys come on to him once, but those he directed towards Sirius. He smirked, remember how livid Sirius was when he found out.

But Evans was different. She told him no twice, constantly lied to him, and for some reason he was intrigued. She was the reason he was up this late. For some reason he couldn't get her out of his head. Even more bizarre was when Snivelus asked her to dance, she'd actually agreed. For three dances, she was dancing with him. James had struggled with walking over there and shoving him aside. He couldn't get over it. She'd dance with Snivelus, but wouldn't even talk with him.

Maybe she liked being chased. That was probably why she'd sprinted from the Great Hall. He probably should have gone after her, but he had decided to listen to Remus, and had just sat down. But he wanted to talk to her, he liked talking to her, although he had to admit, they generally just spoke for brief moments about 'them.' Drove him mad with never being able to find her, even with the map, she was just extremely hard to locate. Luckily they had finally found out where her and her friends disappeared to on the fifth floor, although they had yet to figure out the password.

**Saturday, November 4**

That morning Lilly had slept in, deciding not to for once join her friends at breakfast at the normal time. She didn't care about eating alone, but she was exhausted from completing all of the homework the night before. The dorm was empty when she finally awoke, but she dressed in a pair of jeans and a pale blue camisole that was layered under a slightly darker one with various shaded, horizontal, stripes. So that she wouldn't freeze in the castle she added one of her favorite zip up hoodies. To complete the look she was wearing silver ballet flats.

The common room was rather crowded and she hurriedly made her way through the portrait hole. She took several shortcuts down to the Great Hall, ensuring that she get there in time to actually get some food. Lilly sat in her normal seat, at the end of the table, nearest to the teachers' table. She was rather excited when she saw pancakes and sausage links as well as scrambled eggs appear before her. After filling her plate with all three, she added syrup, after salting the eggs. It was absolute heaven, after taking her first bite. But that bliss quickly ended a moment later when she was joined by James Potter.

Seeing as they were the only two at the Gryffindor table, Lilly wasn't on the receiving end of gawking, or hate stares, but still, she was really uncomfortable. So she opted to just ignore him and continue eating her food. That is, until he started talking.

"Morning Evans." He said, as he started pulling the French toast towards him. Unfortunately for Lilly she'd been raised to have manners.

"Hi." She said in her normal tone, which was of course rather quiet. Her voice normally only raised when she was agitated, or when she was around Parker and Ashton.

"So, why are you here so late?" he asked casually before taking a bite of food. She raised an eyebrow at him and then looked at her food. Taking the hint, he nodded. Although apparently didn't understand that she meant that she was trying to eat.

"I always took you for an early riser." He continued. Lilly shrugged noncommittally. Normally she was, so was Ashton and Parker. But she wasn't going to give in to a conversation with a guy who didn't really care.

"How can you eat eggs and syrup?" he asked suddenly. Lilly glanced up and saw a look of disgust mixed with surprise, causing her to giggle. "Seriously." He said.

"Easy. It's amazing." She answered. "You should try syrup and broccoli." At this he recoiled even further.

"You eat broccoli?" he whispered. Lilly rolled her eyes and nodded. "How?"

"Syrup." She answered smirking. "Or with shredded mozzarella. Now that's a good combination." She answered sighing.

"But still, syrup and eggs?" he asked going back to the original combo. Lilly nodded, before taking another bite.

"Try it sometime. It's good," he nodded vacantly before giving a shudder. "Try the broccoli too." She added trying not to laugh at his disgusted face.

"So what are you doing today?" he asked. She shrugged again. It was the truth.

"Homework?" he guessed. When she shook her head, he let out a gasp. "Evans, are you actually shirking your work? What'll happen to your average?"

"Flourish." She quipped. "I finished last night." He opened his mouth to say something else, but at that moment, Ariella flounced over, and sat down next to him.

"Hey James!" she said. "I was wondering if you wanted to hang out today, unless you have plans or something." Ariella stole a glance at Lilly, who was still eating, already having zoned out of the conversation.

Glancing upwards, Lilly realized the new girl was watching her, and James was watching the new girl. She smiled at the dark haired beauty before shaking her head and going back to her food. A moment later, after they hadn't continued their conversation, Lilly had departed anxious to get out of the Great Hall.

She shook her head, what on earth was going on with that boy? One too many bludgers Lilly, one too many. She thought grinning to herself as she made her way back to the tower.


	5. Chapter 5

_Okay, Several of you, will probably be annoyed. I am working on an update, one that I am getting excited about while I write it. But I realized that this is kind of hard to read, so I'm going to split up Chapter one, so that it's not quite as long, and so that no one misses any important information. I hope you guys enjoy the story._

**The Prank**

**That following Monday**

That morning at breakfast was rather interesting. Lilly, Ashton, and Parker had looked up from their breakfast at the sound of a large explosion from the Ravenclaw table. Two boys had food all over them, with the Marauder sign floating above their head. While the entire school was laughing at the boys, the three girls were laughing at the Marauders' stupidity.

Currently they were in Potions, working on a strengthening solution. Professor Slughorn had been making a spectacle of various potions, especially Lilly's. She was currently scribbling away, writing yet another story, as the rest of the class struggled with their potions while she and Severus were both done. She'd already turned her flask in, afterwards, snagging Ashton and Parker's flasks and filling them as well. After that she'd simply vanished her potion away.

She was rudely interrupted when a scrawl, that was not her own, appeared in the margin of her parchment.

"_Hey Evans_." She scowled at the unfamiliar handwriting, upset that it was on her novel. But she was relieved when it disappeared after a moment.

"**Hi. Who is this**?" she wrote back.

"_An admirer of sorts_."

"**What does that even mean? Is this a joke**?"

"_Why would this be a joke? Is a bloke, honestly not allowed to send notes to his favorite girl?"_

"**Because I don't know who you are, hence a joke. What's the point of her being your favorite girl when you won't show yourself. For all she knows, you've got a girl friend, or you're actually a girl."**

"_You wound me. Do you honestly not trust me?"_

"**Nope."**

"_Ouch. Come on Evans, give me a chance."_

"**Not till you at least show yourself**."

_"I'm done with my work."_

**"There are several guys done with their work. Even Potter and Black are done. Which means that clue is completely worthless."**

_"Why does that have to do with Potter and Black?"_

**"Because they don't do anything. Which shows that everyone is done practically. So that could be anyone who's bored, and wants to pull a prank."**

_"Ouch. Feisty. Sigh, please Evans?"_

**"What are you even asking me for?"**

_"Erm—for a date."_

**"No."**

_"Why?"_

**"I already told you, I have no idea as to who you are. I don't do blind dates."**

_"Neither of us are blind."_

**"Muggle thing."**

"_Oh_."

At this the bell rang, surprising Lilly, so that she had to stay behind and gather up all of her parchment that she had sprawled over the place. Ashton and Parker were halfway out the door, before they realized Lilly wasn't with them. She waved them on, and they said they'd wait outside. She nodded as she continued gathering the pieces of parchment into a single stack.

"Hey Evans." She rolled her eyes at the familiar annoying voice. Ironic that after writing his name down, he'd actually show up.

"Er—hi." She said after a moment. Lilly hated manners, especially since she felt obligated to use them.

"So?" she looked at him blankly. "Are you interested?" he asked.

"In what?" she asked him confused. He raised an eyebrow at her, causing her to simply stare at him. "Listen, Potter, I'm extremely busy, could you please explain whatever the hell you're going on about, so that I can get to my next class?" he smiled at her as if she had just told a joke.

"About the note. Remember, we wrote it out like five seconds go?" she felt herself pale. "So will you?" sighing, she put her messenger bag over her head.

"Listen. It's was funny the first time." She said, looking past him. "But seriously, give it a rest. We all know that you have many admirers. Why don't you go bug them? I'm sure that brunette, erm…Ariella…I think would love to go on a date with you." Lilly took the chance at his silence to go rejoin her friends who were staring from the doorway.

"What was that about?" Parker asked.

"Potter asked me out again. Thought it would be funny." Lilly answered. "Come on we've got Transfiguration, you know how McGonagall gets when we're late." With that the three girls hurried off, after taking a short cut. Oddly enough, Potter beat them there, and to Lilly's dismay, he was sitting in Ashton's seat. Black and Lupin were sitting in their normal seats however.

"Are you lost?" Parker asked, as the three girls arrived at their table. He merely grinned and shook his head. "Well, can you move?" she asked. At that he shook his head again.

"Don't worry about it guys." Ashton said as Parker started twirling her wand, regardless of McGonagall being in the room. "I'll just take his seat. Besides, he probably needs help in this class." at this she walked back towards the empty chair in between Lupin and Black.

Lilly slid into her seat next to Potter and Parker sat next to her. As the rest of the class began filing in, James began talking rapidly to Lilly. After attempting to tune this out, she finally just silenced him. She took out the same piece of parchment that she'd been working with in Potions to read over the last portion of her novel. At this, more notes appeared.

"So, you're rather talented at unspoken spells. That explains Sirius." Lilly glared before succumbing and writing back.

"I don't know what your talking about. I am only a fifth year. they don't start unspoken spells until sxith. It was probably McGonagall."

As if in answer to this, the Professor asked him a question about the quidditch team. Lilly removed the spell silently so he could answer.

"Maybe…" he finally wrote back. "So..Evans, go out with me?"

"Prat."

"Ouch. Why not?" at this Lilly finally just started ignoring him, which he didn't really like. Throughout class he would variously try to get her attention, finally midway through McGonagall lecturing the class on vanishing things, James poked her in the side.

Instantly, without thinking about it, she had jumped while simultaneously punching him in the shoulder, resulting in him yelping out of surprise. Everyone in the room stared at the two of them. Professor McGonagall looked up, but when nothing further occurred, she went back to the lecture.

"Never poke me again." Lilly hissed furiously.

"Didn't know you were ticklish." He wrote on her paper.

"You are a nuisance. Go annoy someone else."

"But I like to annoy you."

"Don't provoke me. You'll regert it. Trust me."

"ooh, should I be scared Evans?"

"There's a reason I'm top in our class." Luckily after that, the class ended and Lilly and Parker hurried back to the common room. They knew Ashton would follow. The minute they reached the common room, Lilly went up to her room and picked up Sneakers before walking back down to the girls' favorite chairs, where Ashton and Parker were sitting.

"Okay, I just have to say, that was possibly the funniest thing I've ever seen." Ashton said giggling. "He looked so shocked." Beside her Parker was nodding. "Black and Lupin were gaping at you."

"Speaking of which, how was sitting between them? Girls were gaping at you." Parker said grinning at her. Ashton shrugged, as Lilly raised an eyebrow.

"Lupin kept asking me questions, er—well they both did. I pretty much ignored them. But I get the feeling they want to know where the lake is and how to get into it. Black kept staring at you."

"Why?" Parker asked. Ashton shrugged.

"He kept asking who you were dating." She answered apologetically.

"Great." Parker muttered, leaning over to pet Sneakers, who was curled up in Lilly's lap. "Well, I doubt anything will happen. I mean, he gets how many girls? I'll just throw someone else at him…" she muttered.

Lilly continued scratching Sneakers behind her ear, as she purred contently. "I still can't believe they actually believed that trail I planted, about the whole Marauders war with those who don't have a name." at this, they all started laughing.

"Those who don't have a name?" Parker sputtered. "That's the new codeword, those who don't have a name?" Lilly shrugged grinning.

"Sounds like that whole crap about the crazed Voldy guy." Ashton said grinning. "Like how people want to start calling him, He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named, or You-Know-Who."

"Yeah…that's sort of where I got it." Lilly said grinning. "People are retarded that they actually want to call him that. I mean, that's just making him scarier. I think we should call him Voldy, like Ashton says." At this the girls began grinning again.

"Hey, they could create a jingle or something!" Parker said. "Voldy! The great emperor who abolishes all that's moldy." At this Ashton and Lilly erupted into laughter.

"That was the stupidest jingle I've ever heard of." Ashton said.

"But that's why it's classified as a jingle. Jingles are designed to be stupid. It's how they get it stuck in people's head." Lilly said, laughing still.

"Wait! Here, I've got one." Ashton exclaimed suddenly. Her tone became quite serious before continuing. "Dear Voldy, you're quite old and moldy." At this they all cracked up at the stupidity of it.

"I must say that was better than Parker's." Lilly said giggling.

"Well, I'd like to see you give it a try." Parker said tauntingly.

"Fine." Lilly said, grinning. "My dearest Voldy, your hair isn't like Goldy's, instead it's rather moldy." This caused them to laugh harder.

"I give you props for pulling in muggle themes." Ashton said.

"What are you three on about?" a voice said suddenly. The three of them jumped and stared at the three Marauders. The three stared at them, like they had just sprouted wings.

"Erm…creating jingles." Ashton offered. "We figured that we'd try and sell Voldermort as a cleaning detergent." At this Remus cracked a smile.

"Really, you guys aren't freaked out by him?" Sirius asked raising an eyebrow. "Girls are normally terrified."

"Just because you're scared doesn't mean the rest of us are." Parker snapped. Lilly shot her a look. "Voldermort is a sorry excuse for people to run and hide. This whole, you-know-who-business is utter nonsense." She said.

"Well, that's what we've been saying." Sirius mumbled. "It's just that no one likes to talk about it." Parker didn't bother replying.

"So, we were wondering if you ladies would be interested in joining us for a drink." James said quickly. The three girls exchanged a glance, Lilly scratching her ear, as was Parker.

"Thanks for the offer, but we have homework." Ashton said smiling.

"Oh, come on, live a little." James said smirking. "You guys deserve a break." At this Parker quickly excused herself, hurrying upstairs. Sirius stared after her. James decided that he'd use the opportunity to sit down next to Lilly. He leaned over so that he could start petting Sneakers, who apparently didn't mind at all.

"Come on, you guy's will have fun." Remus added, looking at Ashton. She in turn looked at Lilly who was still scratching her ear.

"Maybe some other time." Ashton said softly. "Right now I've got to go check on Parker." With that she got up and walked up the stairs. Lilly knew that she wasn't. they both knew that Parker was out the window the moment she'd grabbed her broom. Lilly noticed how Remus' eyes were trailing after her.

Lilly didn't bother moving. She was there first, and she wasn't going to bother, she had a feeling James would try to follow. After a moment, the boy sat down on the couch opposite of her and James. A silence ensued, and since she didn't want to just sit there, she finally said something.

"When are Quidditch tryouts?" all three boys' faces brightened at this question.

"Saturday. Do you play?" James asked. Lilly shook her head. "Don't like flying?"

"Never been." She said. They all stared at her. "I was in the hospital wing during that lesson."

"Why?" James asked. She rolled her eyes. They wouldn't remember.

"You guys exploded a potion in class on purpose and I took the brunt of it. Let's just say, it wasn't pretty." Lilly said looking at Sneakers, as she spoke. Glancing up they all looked a bit embarrassed.

"Sorry." They mumbled. She shrugged.

"It's okay. Not like you guys meant to do it on purpose." She knew that they did. But she'd already gotten her revenge. She, Ashton and Parker had blown up their food the following day at dinner.

"So, why'd you blow up the food this morning?" she finally asked. They all looked surprised, or attempted to.

"Why do you think we did it?" Sirius asked.

"Because I'm not stupid. You're the Marauders. You guys didn't exactly keep it a secret. Besides your symbol was above their heads."

"Fine. Miss Know It All, we found your friends, we wanted revenge. Happy?" Sirius asked acidly. Lilly nodded attempting to suppress a smirk. A moment later several girls entered giggling, and upon seeing the boys, all waltzed over.

"That's my cue to leave." Lilly said, picking up Sneakers and slipping off the couch before the boys could stop her. She made it up the staircase and saw that Ashton had already started her homework.

**That Saturday, around six am**

Parker slipped out of her dorm after retrieving her broom. She needed some time to herself, and she needed to get her natural high. Parker had an addiction, one that was highly dangerous. She was an adrenaline junkie. She'd developed it when she was a kid, blame the older brothers. They were all alike.

Seeing as she couldn't sleep and she'd gone awhile without flying, she figured she'd spend a few hours down on the pitch this morning on her broom. Luckily for her, everyone was asleep, save for teachers, so she slipped out the front doors, hurrying across the grounds towards the Quidditch pitch. She was wearing jeans and a crew neck, with a zip up hoody to keep warm.

The moment she set foot on the Quidditch pitch, she gave herself into the feeling, and threw herself into the air. She started off with the little tricks to get her warmed up, before actually throwing her hard tricks.

* * *

James couldn't sleep. He had Quidditch tryouts today, first time as Captain. So he was freaking out. He had gone down to the locker room, to just kill time while trying to figure out what to do. He had to replace the entire team this year. everyone else had left, well, except for Sirius. He finally went back outside for some fresh air, and sat down in the bleachers, finally looking up when he heard the sound of a broom.

Someone was flying. He looked up surprised that he hadn't realized it before. He watched curious to see who it was, but he was unable to get a clear view of their face. All he could make out was a ponytail of long hair. Whoever she was, she was fast. Her broom took her everywhere, and she was pulling hard tricks. He stared as she went into a deep dive before yanking herself out seconds before colliding with the ground and shooting straight back into the air.

He watched as she climbed higher and higher into the air, and to his horror, she suddenly jumped off of the broom. He yelped, unable to do anything, but watch. His horror quickly turned to confusion and then to awe, as he saw her turn several summersaults in mid air, before landing on the broom once more, at a lower elevation.

She did it again, after rising in the air a bit. Except this time instead of summersaults, she was in a pencil dive, straight for the ground, and he didn't think she'd actually pull herself out of this one, but at the last possible moment, her broom appeared, and she caught it one handed, hovering several feet above the ground. James was gaping. This person was his hero. He vaguely recognized her face, but he couldn't' quite place it.

But as she finally landed, around eight, he began making his way to where she landed. As he drew nearer, she looked a bit upset and surprised to see him.

"You are amazing." He sputtered, once he was within earshot. "You've got to come to tryouts at eleven." She looked confused.

"What are you on about Potter?" at her voice, he finally realized how she seemed so familiar. It was Mckinnons, Evan's friend.

"Gryffindor Quidditch tryouts. You have to come." He said. Her eyes widened. "What position do you paly?"

"Beater." She answered quietly. "I'm not any—"

"Don't even say that." He growled. "I just watched you pull tricks that I haven't even seen before. You're going to tryout or I will tell Sirius that you want to date him." He said grinning as she narrowed her eyes.

"Fine. I'll try out." He grinned cheekily.

"I knew that would work." James said smirking. "So how'd you learn how to do all that?" he asked.

She bit her lip before answering. "I have four older brothers." He nodded. "I can play pretty much any position, but my favorite's beater." They both began walking towards the castle.

"How did your broom return to you, after you jumped off of it?" james asked curiously. "I've never seen or heard of that as a possibility." She grinned at him.

"My eldest brother, has a thing with tricking out our brooms. It's a spell, he designed it to automatically return to the owner, whenever they think about it. It's pretty nifty. It's kind of like telepathy. I know it sounds weird, but it just seems to understand me." She said grinning.

"I get it. But I do have a question." He said pausing. "Can I meet your brother? I need one of those."

She smirked at him and rolled her eyes. "I'll see what I can do. He's really busy lately." James nodded as they walked into the Great Hall. "Hungry?" she asked. He nodded and they went and sat down together.

"You don't eat eggs with syrup do you?" he asked warily. To his surprise she burst into laughter.

"I see you've been either eating with Lilly, or watching Lilly eat." She grinned at him, and shook her head. "No. I can't say that I do. It's not bad, but it's just not one of my favorites like it is to her." James sighed.

"Yeah, I had breakfast with her once. She also mentioned broccoli with syrup and then with cheese." At this Parker smiled.

"Now, that's actually an awesome combination. I got her started on the latter. But Lilly has a bit of a sweet tooth. That's the syrup fasciation." She explained. James smiled.

Lilly. It fit. Lilly Evans. He thought absently as they both began eating. During breakfast a few students wandered up and inquired about the tryouts, he kept repeating at eleven.

"You have a spot. It's just a matter of where." He explained. "I'll give up seeker if I have to, in order to put you on the team." She grinned at him.

"Then what would you play?" she asked curiously.

"Chaser." He answered. "Second best position." He looked at her rather curiously. "I'm wondering about whether you're a better seeker than a beater though. You're flying is amazing."

"You haven't seen me handle a bat yet." She said smirking.

"Oi! Prongsi!" they both looked up to see Sirius walking towards them. "Mckinnons." He said grinning. When she didn't say anything, he continued. "Ready for tryouts?"

"Yep." He said grinning at Parker. Sirius looked between the two of them before turning to Parker.

"Are you going to come watch me tryout?" he asked cockily. "There's a reason I'm the best flyer on the team." She rolled her eyes, silently reminding herself not to hit him.

"I bet I could outfly you." She said back. At this he shook his head.

"I'd like to see that."

"Do you want to put money on that?" she asked. He shook his head smirking. "Figures."

"Oh, no, I want something much better than money. If I win, which I will, you have to spend a date with me." James, was staring at his plate the entire time, trying to not laugh.

"Fine. If I win, you leave me alone, in addition to fifty galleons."

"Deal." They shook hands, and stood up. "Come on James. Well, we need to do this now, before tryouts. It can be warm ups." James nodded standing up and following them back down on the quidditch pitch.

"Who's going first?" James asked grinning.

"Black can." Parker said quickly. He grinned at her, before jumping onto his broom. They watched as he pulled numerous extremely difficult turns and spins, before he finally landed. Parker nodded as she walked past them.

"Not bad." She said simply before launching herself into the air. The first trick she pulled was the same as Sirius' he grinned as he looked at James.

"Like she can actually beat me." He said. James shrugged, and they went back to watching her. Once she'd reached a certain height, she stood on top of her broom, and waved at them, before diving into the air, as if it was a pool, and coiling her legs around her, into a ball, as she spiraled to the ground, before catching her broom with one hand and swinging herself up.

Sirius' jaw was dangling.

"So, when can I get my money?" she asked as they walked towards her. Sirius began mumbling incoherently.


	6. Chapter 6

**I'M SOO SORRY!!!**

_I totally and completely screwed up this chapter earlier today. Oops, my bad. =] Erm...in case any of you are wondering...that's actually an unpublished fan lib. So congrats! You've gotten a sneak peak. This is the actual chapter six; and I am working on an actual updated chapter that should be out soon. I'd like to say thanks to, the three who caught the mistake. =] Sadly, the reviews weren't signed. But thanks, and enjoy!!_

**The Prank**

_About two hours later_

"Okay, so the teams' as follows. "Chasers, Jared Thompson, Katrina Bell, and Sara Marshell. Beaters, Mckinnons and Sirius, keeper is Jake Wood and I'm seeker. Practice is Wednesday night at six. You guys can go." With that the team departed.

"Potter." James looked up as Mckinnons called his name.

"Yeah?" he asked walking over.

"I will stay on one condition." He nodded. "You need to back off of Lilly."

"What do you mean?" he hedged. Sirius looked up in interest.

"She doesn't have any information about them. Stop looking into it. You're just making her upset."

"Fine." James said. "I'll stop asking her about it. Besides, we already know who it is. They're in Ravenclaw." She smirked and nodded.

"Oh right. Er—forgot about that." With that she hurried away, but stopped and looked back. "Black, you owe me fifty galleons."

"I think I'm in love with her." Sirius said once she was out of earshot. "Did you see her fly?" He asked awe dripping from his voice.

"Yep. Three times." At that Sirius stopped.

"What?"

"I saw her this morning before breakfast."

"You mean, you knew when I'd made that bet?" He asked sounding upset. James smirked and nodded. "What the bloody hell?"

"I thought it'd be rather interesting." James answered. "Okay, so I needed a laugh. Wish I'd gotten a camera. Your face was priceless."

**Friday, November 17**

The quidditch game was today. Gryffindor verses Ravenclaw. Parker was the only calm person on the entire team. Everyone else was currently freaking out and pacing up and down the locker room. Potter was rubbing his temple, while Sirius was staring at his shoes.

"We're going to die." Katrina was muttering. "What are we thinking?" Parker looked up, finally at the end of her rope snapped.

"Katrina shut up! it's a game for crying out loud. Not life or death." At this Potter and Black stared at her, as if they were about to defend it, but once they saw that Katrina had calmed down as did the other half of the team they just let it go.

A minute later and they were all walking out to the pitch. The entire school was here as per usual. As they were announced to the crowd, Gryffindor went crazy with cheers. Parker grinned as she spotted Lilly and Ashton holding up a sign saying, Go Parker.

"Ah, the first game of the season, always exciting isn't it?" the commentator's voice rose above the stadium along with the quidditch players. "This game will mark the beginning for Gryffindor, as they're starting entirely with a new team, save Potter and Black. Ravenclaw has the advantage, seeing as their team is returning for the third time."

Parker rolled her eyes. She hated when commentators were from the same house. They were so biased.

"And there's the whistle! Bell has the quaffle, and she quickly passes it to Thompson! Oh, but he's knocked aside by a bludger, and he drops the quaffle!

"Ravenclaw has possession and is currently speeding along towards the goalposts, Mercredi is about to shoot, but oh! Is knocked aside as a bludger collides with his arm. But the quaffle is saved by teammate Kate Breadth. She is a wonder isn't she."

Luckily following that statement, there was a chorus of cheers from Gryffindor as Wood blocked the ball, and Ravenclaw began groaning. Parker was hovering nearby Kate, waiting for a bludger to appear. They'd currently avoided her, Sirius had pelted one at Mercredi, but other than that, they'd been kind of missing. About two seconds later, Parker had flattened herself against her broom, rolling over, as a bludger narrowly missed her head.

"Ooh, well, that's what you get for choosing a girl as a beater." At that statement, Parker was livid. She righted her broom and two seconds later pelted a bludger at the commentators stand. The crowd began roaring with laughter as a loud yelp of pain was heard over the field. A moment later and he sat back up, and announced that Ravenclaw had scored.

"Nice Mckinnons." Black yelled, as he passed her, laughing his head off. She grinned and noticed yet another bludger zooming towards her.

"And, ravenclaw has seen the snitch!" came yelling over the speakers again. Parker looked down, and sure enough, Aaron Blevins was streaking towards the ground. She also located a bludger, simply hovering, at the same time as a beater on ravenclaw. She grinned and before even thinking about it, jumped off her broom, allowing herself to freefall, down to the bludger.

"What in MERLIN'S NAME?" she grinned as the entire crowd was screaming. The moment she fell next the bludger, she swung her bat as hard as she could, hitting it at the seeker, as she was level with him, aiming downwards slightly so that it would connect and throw him off course. She continued falling, and a minute later, her broom caught her, as the crowd was screaming.

Her luck was golden. Blevins missed the snitch, being nearly knocked off his broom as the bludger hit him in the side. She went after more bludgers, blocking them from hitting her teammates as they had possession of the quaffle.

"The score is forty to thirty, Gryffindor," Parker gazed at the goalposts, and blinked. She could see the snitch perfectly. Floating by Potter's ankle. As he was scanning the field.

"Potter!" she screamed. He looked at her and she mouthed, "Your ankle!" she saw him look down and stare in astonishment as he reached down and grabbed the fluttering ball. But as he had been picking it up, a bludger had been flying towards Parker. She gave way to instincts and collapsed, rolling over and allowing herself to dangle in midair, to avoid it. She noticed it came flying back at her, courteous of the other beater that was grinning at her, she swung the bat and deflected the bludger away from her, before swinging herself back up onto her broom.

A moment later and the whistle was blown. Everyone stared in surprise, as Madame Hooch declared Gryffindor the winner, a second later and the Gryffindors exploded in cheers, all yelling as they ran down to the pitch to embrace the team. Parker grinned as Lilly and Ashton tackled her.

"You were amazing! As per usual!" Ashton yelled.

"That was ah, as you Americans would say, "wicked." Lilly said grinning, as Parker blushed. They were walking back to the locker rooms, and she quickly ducked inside to hit the showers. Once she was out, her long thick curly hair was curlying down her back, thanks to a drying spell her mom had taught her. She was dressed in her favorite pair of jeans, a striped pink camisole that peeked out underneath a violet, v-neck sweater.

"Great game Mckinnons!" Katie yelled as she walked out of the locker room. Outside Lilly and Ashton were waiting. Parker loved the outfit that lIlly had on.

To go with her jeans, Lilly was wearing a light blue tank top that was drapered, and a bit loose, overtop of a darker blue crew neck tee shirt. Overtop of this she was wearing her gold scarf. It was draped around her neck lousely. The thin material, was a very thin, soft gauze with the transparent beads place in it.

Ashton was wearing her favorite zip-up hoody, overtop of a lighter red striped tee-shirt, which had an even lighter shade of red camisole peeking out beneath that. Like lilly she was wearing a scarf, except that it was the heavy Gryffindor scarf. All three girls had on their ballet flats that they adored so much.

"So. I see that you decided to support Ravenclaw." Parker said eyeing her outfit. Lilly blushed and shook her head.

"I made a sign." She said grinning. "I don't look good in pink or red. You know this. Besides I forgot it was Ravenclaw. I promise I won't wear green for slytherin." She said laughing as they made their way back up to the castle.

"You did amazing today." Ashton said grinning. "I loved how you took out Billy Andrews, after he made that remark about not choosing girls as beaters. I saw him after the game, his arm swollen a bit."

"Crap. I was aiming for his head." Parker said, sounding thoroughly disappointed as her two friends erupted into laughter.

"Oh, Parker, remember how you enjoyed being a loser?" lilly asked as they reached Gryffindor tower.

"Yeah, ah that's the life." She said fondly.

"Erm, well, I believe you have successfully, dumped that life down the drain." She said smirking. Parker gulped.

"Great. I enjoyed that life. Nice, quiet, not full of prats known as Sirius Black." The two started laughing again, but all froze when a new voice joined in the conversation.

"Someone say my name?" Turning they saw the marauder with bottles of Firewhiskey in his arms. Parker grinned, and pulled two bottles out of the several dozen that he was carrying before climbing into the portrait hole. The moment they entered, people started cheering and congratulating Parker and Sirius. The three girls, quickly ducked into a corner, trying to escpae the throngs of people.

"Erm—we need glasses." Parker said as they sat down in the corner, that held three over sized arm chairs, surrounding a small table. Lilly grinned and waved her wand, conjuring three tall glasses. "Thanks." Parker said grinning as she opened up the first bottle of firewhiskey.

**Wednesday, November28**

_Dearest Marauders,_

_We've been rather disappointed of late. You see, you never did reply to our last note. It hurts that you think so little of our friendship. We've been meaning to ask if you enjoyed our little joke with the birds, Prongs. No harm intended._

_Psh! There was harm intended!! You two might not have thought so, but I certaintly did."—MR_

_Sorry about MR. A tad upset with Mr. Prongs. But not to worry, MR'll get over it, eventually. What we did want to talk about was your little joke on the two Ravenclaw boys. Not exactly you best trick ever. But I suppose if you want to copy us from first year…. --HB_

_Anyways, we did enjoy your little ploy of proposing to McGonagall Padfoot. We are very sad that it didn't work out between the two of you. If you ask us, we feel that her and Dumbledore have a tryst going on.—MR_

_We'd also like to mention the Quidditch game._

_Congratulations on doing so well, although, we feel that we need to point out, that both, Mr. Prongs, and Mr. Padfoot cannot even touch Mckinnons. She's rather spectacular at flying, wouldn't you agree, Pads? We did enjoy watching her tell you where the snitch was as well, when everyone could obviously see it bouncing by your ankle, Mr. Prongs. –PE_

_Once more, please try and step it up a notch. –HB_

James, Sirius, Peter, and Remus were staring at the letter that had landed in their lap as the bird sat nearby eating a plate of biscuits.

"Okay, this is creepy." Peter said gazing at the letter once more. "They know you're guys' nicknames." All the other three could do was simply nod. For once in his life, Peter had hit the nail on the head. It was creepy. They were always so careful, so how on earth, was this possible?

**A few days later….**

"Parker," the girl in question looked up as Lilly called her name. An unknown owl, had landed in front of Lilly with a thick envelope and she had opened it quickly. To their delight, it contained the Marauder's answer.

"Well, this should be interesting." Lilly said as she nodded towards the door. Unfortunately, the four boys were making their way towards the girls that were sitting at the table. Lilly hastily stowed the letter in her bag, so that they wouldn't see it. Unfortunately, James noticed, as did Remus.

"Ah, get some mail Evans?" Remus asked politely. She shrugged and continued eating her breakfast.

"What is it a love letter?" Sirius asked, raising an eyebrow at James. Parker and Ashton both rolled their eyes, until the entire party was shocked by Lilly's answer.

"As a matter of fact, yes, it is." At this, James' jaw, as well as the rest of the boys', had dropped. Parker suppressed a grin, as did Ashton. Sirius was the first to recover.

"Ah, so you and Jamsie here, finally getting along?" he asked grinning at her. Lilly rolled her eyes.

"Erm…no. What are you on about?" she asked. "Never mind. NO this is from a friend of mine." She said quietly.

"Really?" Remus asked sounding interested. "Pray, tell us what house is he in?" Lilly snorted in response.

"Why? So that you can threaten him to stay away from me?" at this, James looked in the opposite direction. "Nice try. Ready girls?" with that, the trio left the table and quickly headed off to the common room, taking a few secret passage ways.

**MR, HB, & PE,**

**We congratulate you on discovering two of the Marauders. Not an easy feat, many a person has tried and failed. As the infamous Marauders, we propose a meeting of the two groups, Room of Requirement, Monday night at six. Just to discuss tactics and such….if you catch our drift….**

**We love that you think that you've been winning. Although we do applaud you for the fiasco with the Slytherins. It was quite entertaining to watch, and a bit disappointing, that we weren't the ones behind it. –Moony.**

**But as for MR. Don't think this is over by a long shot. I don't understand why you feel so threatened by me, but if you want to play this game, so be it. –Prongs.**

**But most importantly, we'd like to point out, that we are the ones who are better at pranks. At least people know who we are, or at least suspect. We're famous, and popular. Mwwhhaaa. Besides, you Ravenclaws aren't nearly as clever as you seem to think. –Padfoot.**

**As for McGonagall, don't worry your little heads about that situation. We've got it taken care of, oh and we agree, Dumbledore and McGonagall, probably have a tryst going on. –Wormtail.**

**We await you reply—Marauders.**

Lilly looked up in disbelief at her two friends.

"This is all they came up with?" Parker asked disbelief etched onto her face. "I mean, you'd think we were actually dealing with several first years!" the other two nodded as Lilly stowed the note back in her bag.

"I mean honestly. That was the stupidest thing I've ever read!" Parker agreed. "Do you think they wrote it without Lupin?" at this Ashton and Lilly began giggling as they nodded.

**December 25**

Lilly was attempting to not cry at the moment.

Every year it was worse. Especially at this time of year. Her dad hadn't even made it home this time. The office needed him too much, and he had simply made up for it by buying them each an overly expensive present. Her mother's included another diamond as well as a new Ferrari, and a few designer purses, therefore she wasn't too upset. Petunia had received a diamond tennis bracelet, go figure, in addition to a designer purse, hideous one that Lilly had ever seen. Lilly had gotten something else entirely. She'd gotten two first editions, of her favorite books; "Becoming Jane" and "Pride and Predjuidce" both by Jane Austen, and they were worth a fortune.

That's one thing that she absolutely loved about her dad, even though he was never around. He knew her, or at least a portion of her. She'd always wanted first editions of those books, and now she had them. Her sister had simply sneered at the two books, but Lilly had absolutely adored them, even though, she'd much rather have her dad home instead.

She was currently stuck up in her room, bored out of her mind, angry at her sister and their mum for not bothering to tell her that they were having the rest of the family over and that she was supposed to still be at her boarding school. So they simply asked her to stay in her room all evening. So much for her being a part of this family. Lilly couldn't wait until she could go back to Hogwarts, where she at least had a place among Ashton and Parker.

Lilly eventually just couldn't take it anymore. Grabbing her wand, and her knee length wool coat, she opened the window to her room, and climbed outside. This was possibly the first time in her life that she was thankful that her house was a ranch styled and only had one floor. She quickly slipped away from the house, and hurried to the park that she'd grown up at. Once she made it there, she sank down onto one of the swings, and just let a few tears fall.

"Hey." At the sound of his voice, she jumped. Looking up, she saw none other than her friend, Severus.

"Hi." She said quietly, wiping her cheeks.

"I take it your dad didn't show?" she nodded. "What was the bribery?" she gave a small smile. Sev, knew her family so well.

"Two first editions of my favorite books." She answered.

"Not bad." Severus said, giving her a grin. "Although, I bet you'd much rather have him there." She nodded.

"yeah. But at least my present isn't some of those hideous purses he gave my mom and my sister." She said rolling her eyes. She would have probably burned them. "But still…."

"So what are you doing out here?" he asked.

"It was either here, or in my room, listening to my extended family party, while I'm supposedly at boarding school." She looked over at him. "What about you?"

"My mum was fighting with my dad again. I got sick of hearing it." He said simply. "You'd think they'd just shut up once in a while." She nodded.

"I miss Hogwarts." Lilly said a moment later.

"Yeah, so do I." Severus agreed.

**Febuary 14**

Ashton was roaming the halls. It was about three am, and of course, she couldn't sleep. So she was going around and visiting her favorite portraits, she'd made sure to ask them how their holidays had been, if she hadn't made it there since before Christmas, and at the moment she was hurrying towards the dungeouns. Not the Slytherin side, just the normal side, where there were dozens of secret passageways and secrets. She hurried down the spiral staircase that she had taken, before stopping in front of a portrait with what appeared to be a wizard version of Count Dracula.

"What do you vant?" he asked in a heavy accent. She smiled and shrugged. "I don't have time for this." When she continued to merely smile at him, he finally groaned. "If I let you in, will you stop bugging me?" she nodded, and he swung the portrait open, revealing a golden staircase, that went either up or down. she continued decending, until she came to a solid brass door. She knocked three times, and then kicked the door, and it swung open.

The room inside was brightly lit, and resembled the Roman Empire. Collumns were everywhere and it was gorgeous. There was a pool in the center of the room, that was cool, not freezing like the black lake and not like the caribean. It was just a pool. Meant to resemble the roman bathing pools, as Lilly had told her. But this was one her favorite rooms, as it was Parker's because Parker had an addiction to the Roman diet of bread, cheese, and watered down wine.

Tomorrow was going to be interesting.

It was a day that her and her two friends thought was ridiculous and annoying. But there was one thing for certain, it was going to be really interesting.

**Febuary 14**, _**Breakfast  
**___

Parker had sat down across from her two best friends, when they were suddenly mauled by three cupids. She was forever cross with Dumbledore for permitting their usage each year on this ridiculous day. Normally the three girls were never bombarded like this, and then all of a sudden, there were three of them. The worst part was they all began singing, simulataneoulsy, in harmony, to all three of the girls.

Lilly finally had the decency to silence them all. They didn't take too kindly to this, and all tried to start yelling at the girls, but to no avail. Instead, they finished their silent song and handed the girls a present, a piece, before departing. Their entire day was like that. Constant interruptions, but thankfully for them, it was all silent.

Parker finally broke down from curiosity and opened her present. It was a miniscule quidditch pitch, with her performing her tricks. She smiled at the thought, and actually thought it was rather cool. Following her example, her friends did the same. Lilly had ended up with sugar quills, and Ashton, had gotten a small golden key, that was on a nice gold chain.

Lilly had tossed the sugar quills to her friends and said, "Have at it." They both grinned at her, and nodded. They knew that Lilly hated those quills, they'd made her scik the first time she'd tried them. Parker thought her present was actually pretty sweet, especially since it even looked like her, in miniature form. Sounded like her as well, you could hear the mini-Parker cursing from time to time, as she continued pulling some of the same stunts that Parker did herself.

After seeing Ashton's present, she immediately began wondering if it led to a room inside the castle itself. Afterall, why else would one need a key? But she shrugged it off, as she continued to watch the miniature quidditch player. Overall, she had to admit today wasn't as horrific as she had originally thought it would be. The girls had decided not to pull their annual, Valentine's prank, seeing as Parker hadn't been able to do anything due to Quidditch practice.

Parker waved goodbye to her two friends, and began walking towards the Quidditch pitch. She was running a bit late, but she wasn't too worried about it. After all, what was Potter going to do? Kick her off the team? She wasn't afraid in the least of that happening. Even if it did, she wouldn't really care. She knew that he'd be upset that she was late, but honestly, her friends came before Quidditch. As much as she loved it, she wasn't a die hard fanatic like all of her brother's were. She simply was addicted to the adrenaline rush.

"Mckinnons! You're late!" James hollered, as she walked out onto the quidditch pitch. "Why are you in jeans?" she looked at him with an eyebrow raised.

"This is what I practice in." she said simply. "I'm sorry I was late." She said sighing. This boy was entirely predictable. All of them were when it concerned quidditch. The rest of the team watched on, in silence. James seemed to be overly upset, as if something else was bothering him.

"Fine." He said gruffly. "Come on, we don't have much time." With that he jumped into the air, and began barking out orders. Sirius, Mckinnons, start practicing. Just play pass the bludger or something." At this, Sirius and Parker went to release a bludger and grab their bats.

"What's eating Potter?" she asked quietly. Sirius simply shrugged. When he continued to say nothing, she simply rolled her eyes. "Do you want to have a competition?" at this he sent her a grin and nodded.

"What are the conditions?" he asked. She shrugged.

"Knock each other off the broom with the bludger?" she suggested. He raised an eyebrow.

"James will kill us if we get hurt." He pointed out. At this Parker shrugged.

"So what. It's not like we don't have magic to heal us, not to mention, he's already upset. He'll be upset with anything we do. Why not have a little fun?" as Sirius continued to hesitate, she finally decided to throw out the magic words. "Come on, I dare you."

"Fine." He said quickly, releasing the bludger. "but if you get hurt, you don't get to cry about it." He said pointedly.

"What makes you so sure that I'm going to lose?" she scoffed. Sirius had already mounted his broom, and was getting ready to take off. "oh, terms, are we getting anything if we win, or is this just for fun?"

He grinned deviously. "How about, I win, you have to do whatever I say for a week, and vice versa if I lose." She grinned along with him and nodded.

"Deal." And before he could take off, she tripped him, causing him to roll off of his broom. "Apparently I win." She said grinning.

"What?!" he yelped. "That doesn't count!" Parker immediately began grinning.

"Sirius. Let me point out the flaw in your argument. Number one, we never agreed that you had to be in the air, and secondly, nothing about how I knocked you off the broom. Congratulations, you've been outsmarted by me yet again." He groaned.

_**The next morning….**_

Sirius walked downstairs, to the common room, where, unfortunately for him, one Miss Parker Mckinnons was waiting. She immediately grinned and beckoned to him, who of course had to listen. Stupid bet. Stupid, stupid bet.

"Hey Black. Well, I've decided that you are going to waltz into the Great Hall and sing to the entire student body of your love for one Mr. Severus Snape." At this he began immediately shaking his head.

"No way. No bloody way!" he yelped. She simply grinned at him, knowing that he'd do it. After all, bet's to Sirius Black was all he knew, and he knew that he'd never hear the end of it, if he backed down.

"Sirius, we can do this the easy way, or the hard way." Parker began, walking closer to him. She stepped up behind him, and whispered into his ear, "I can always make it more embarrassing." Sirius, at the moment, was attempting to stop himself from turning around and grabbing her so that he could start making out with him.

"Fine." He grumbled, knowing that she'd end up with a triumphant smirk.

"Oh, and you can't tell anyone why, well I suppose the Marauders, but not anyone else." She said grinning. "Don't forget this morning, when everyone's there!" she called before going to join her friends who were watching them curiously, from by the portrait hole.

That was possibly the worst moment of Sirius' education. Having to walk in, in front of all his peers, in front of people that thought he was amazing, and other's who hated him/feared him, and announce that he was in love with one Snivelus Snape. Needless to say, the entire student population found it quite hilarious. Well, minus the Maruader's and Snape. He didn't hear the end of it for the rest of the day, er…well at least until people began to start getting wary of his hexing skills.

Lunch was even worse. He had to show up and perform a ballet act that he didn't know in front of everyone. It was like he had the imperius curse placed on him, although he knew that it wasn't it. It was the magical ballet skirt that Parker had given to him. The entire week was like this. That girl was evil.

"Sirius, why are you doing this?" James finally asked, on Thursday night. "You're killing your reputation." Sirius nodded miserably. "Why?"

"I lost a bet." He said groaning. "To Mckinnons." At this, Remus began chuckling.

"What was the bet?" Pettigrew asked.

"First person to knock the other person off their broom at Quidditch practice, has control over the other person for a week." At this James looked up surprised.

"But neither of you were attacking each other." He said slowly. Sirius nodded once more.

"She got me before we got into the air. Tripped me before I could take off." At this the other three stifled grins.

"That sucks mate." James finally managed. "But hey, the next thing she tells you to do, make sure she keeps it as general as possible, and then turn it around on her."

Sirius just stared at him. "As brilliant as that sounds, how am I supposed to get her to keep it general. It's not like I can be like, 'Mckinnons, could you be as vauge as possible so that I could interpret what you're saying to my pleasure?" at that Remus grinned.

"No. But I have an idea."

The next morning, Parker had run out of ideas, so Lilly decided to give her one. Sure it was lame, but Sirius would hate it, and that was the point.

"Okay, listen, you have to go up to—" but at that a boy cut her off.

"Mckinnon's what's your first name?" some boy yelled. She looked at him and rolled her eyes. "We need it for a sign for the next Quidditch game."

"Parker!" she finally called back after the boy continued to nag her and made her lose her train of thought. "what was I saying, right…Marianne Sanchez, or Sarai Duphey, and I dunno, kiss them, in front of well, everyone." By this time Sirius' jaw had dropped open.

"Sanchez? Duphey?" he asked. "Those two?" she grinned and nodded before walking away. The minute she was out of the portrait hole, Remus appeared, and James handed a few galleons to the boy who had distracted Parker.

"Excellent." Remus said grinning. "Now you can either kiss one of your two stalkers, or you can embarrass Miss Mckinnons." Sirius grinned back at his two best friends. Mckinnons was about to finally get what's coming to her.

Once they had waltzed down to the Great Hall, making sure that they were one of the last ones to enter, they had all made sure to sit near the girls. Sirius walked straight up to Parker, as she was about to sit down.

"Oi! Mckinnons!" he said loudly, gaining the attention of nearly everyone in the hall. She turned around and raised an eyebrow at him. "I've made my decision." At this she smirked at him.

"Oh. Have you?" she asked. When he nodded, she simply shrugged. "Well, best of luck to you." She went to turn around, but what she wasn't anticipating was that Sirius would immediately step forward, slipping an arm around her waist, and pulling her to him.

"What are yo—" but she didn't get to finish that question, seeing as, Sirius had kissed her. Parker, immediately tried to push him away, but seeing as he was a lot stronger than herself, it really did nothing. With his free hand, he began running it through her crazy curls, and pretty soon, Parker found herself kissing him back.

This of course shocked Sirius. Mostly because he thought she'd be to surprised that he was kissing her, but what really shocked him, was the fact that she was brilliant at it. Parker had a fistful of his shirt, and was partially pulling him closer to her, and partially keeping herself standing upright, while Sirius had begun to trace the small of her back. Pretty soon, several boys began catcalling, while nearly all the girls simply scowled at the pair. When Sirius finally released her, he gave a cheery wink and went to sit with his friends.

Parker somehow was able to find her seat, and just sat there numb. Her brain had been fried. What the bloody hell was he playing at? Her two friends began to stare at her, in wonder, while several Gryffindor girls began to edge closer so that they could ask how long they'd been seeing each other and her stupid questions. Eventually, they began to realize that they weren't going to get anything out of Parker at the moment, and they started to disappear gradually.

The boys were highly enjoying this meal. Not only did Parker not have a response, she seemed to have frozen in shock. The four Marauders had all began cracking jokes and finally James asked in undertone, "So? How was it?"

"I'm not going to lie. Pretty spectacular." At this all of their jaws had dropped. "Yeah, that was my response. Why do you think that it took that long?" upon arriving at this answer, they all began chuckling again, and looked up at the girls, only to find that they'd already escaped from the hall.

_**An hour laterish…..**_

Parker was furious.

No. that was to mild an understatement. Parker Anastasia Mckinnons was livid. Absolutely livid. How dare he kiss her! In front of everyone! Her first kiss! With him????? This was an absolute nightmare!

Little did Parker know, she was saying this all aloud, luckily for her, the only ones in ear shot were her two best friends. They had sat there in silence, allowing her to rant, knowing that she would need to. Afterall, this was quite a shock. Who would have thought that Sirius Black would kiss Parker Mckinnons. It wasn't that Parker wasn't gorgeous, she was, she just never seemed to want a boy's attention. She was much more interested in making the grade, as was her friends.

After what seemed like ages, Parker finally stopped seething, and her breathing returned to normal, as she settled down onto the couch, across from the chaise lounge that Lilly was sitting on. The three girls were up in the little balcony that Ashton had recently found.

Lilly was the first to venture into the questioning. "Erm…so….how was it?" she finally asked. Parker shrugged.

"To be honest….weird." at this both girl simply looked at her confused. "I mean, it's not like it isn't enjoyable. But it's still weird."

"Weird, how?" Ashton asked. Parker looked at her hands, before speaking slowly.

"It's hard to explain…" she murmured. "Like…you have these weird feelings running through your stomach, somewhat like butterflys, plus you want more, but at the same time, you're like what the hell is this?"

"That does sound weird." Lilly agreed.

"Well, he was also massaging my head, and tracing my back. I'm not going to complain about that. I know I enjoyed that. But overall, it was just weird." She finally said. "I…dunno…why'd he do it anyways?" the other two girls simply shrugged. What the three girls didn't realize was that the culprit behind the kiss was in fact very nearby.

"What do you mean she thought it was weird?" James asked startled. "Is she out of her mind?" Sirius shrugged as his two friends, James and Peter looked absolutely flabbergasted.

"She said it was weird. I…what girl has ever found my kissing to be anything but heavan?" he finally asked. Remus simply shrugged. He was rather tired due to the fact that a full moon was almost there. "I just don't get it."

"Then prove her wrong." Peter piped up. All three boys turned to stare at him.

"Er…what?" Sirius finally asked. Peter sighed, and rolled his eyes.

"If you're so bloody intent on being the best kisser, prove her wrong. Snog her senseless until she changes her opinion." At that James and Sirius exchanged incredulous looks.

"Wormtail." Sirius said, sounding rather astonunded. "Man, you're a genius." At this compliment his friend turned a bit pink.

"It's brilliant." James chorused, looking over at Remus, who had a bemused expression on his face.

"Well, the idea does hold some merit." He said slowly, causing the rest to beam.

"Black!" Sirius looked up with amusement to see Parker walking over to him. "What the bloody hell was that, this morning?!" he grinned cheekily at her, and she simply glared at her. He caught sight of Evans and their other friend aways off, watching warily.

"Ah, so I take you enjoyed our little endouver, did you?" he asked using that traditional smirk that so many girls fell for. Girls that weren't Parker Mckinnons that was.

"No. I didn't. You didn't fulfill the bet." She said stormily, only causing him to grin wider at her.

"Actually I did. If you recall, when giving me today's task, you said three names. Before you interrupt and prove yourself wrong, you said Parker. Remember. Remember that nice little chap, who asked your name? You see, you never did specifically exclude yourself." As his words washed over her, she stared in horror.

Parker, for once in her life was speechless. Utterly speechless. So she turned on her heel and beckoned to Ashton and Lilly as she swept out of the common room. She was silent all the way to the Room of Requirement. Even then, she just furiously began to pace.

"I take it, you would like revenge?" Ashton asked dryly. Parker immediately began nodding furiously. "And dare I say, as soon as possible?" again, Parker simply nodded. Ashton immediately looked over at Lilly.

"Erm….would you like to attack pride?" she finally asked. Yet another nod from Parker. "Love potion to Potter?" she finally suggested,, having run out of ideas. This however caused Parker to stop pacing.

"Lilly that's bloody brilliant!" she yelped.

"Hey! You're finally picking up the British lingo!" Ashton said jokingly, as Parker rolled her eyes.

"Do you think that we could somehow get a hold of a love potion?" she asked Lilly anxiously. "I mean, he'd hate it, plus you'd be hitting Potter simulataneously." Lilly thought about it for a minute.

"I believe we could. I mean, I could possibly make it myself….if I needed help, I suppose I could simply ask Sev. I mean, we'd have to be careful about how much information we gave him. We can't risk him accidently telling someone."

"Is there a way for us to do this as the three bookworms, rather than "Those who do not have a name?" Ashton asked. "I mean, what else am I supposed to call our other halves?" she asked as her two friends snorted.

"I don't know…." Parker said. "I mean, at the moment, know one has any inkling of a reason to suspect us. If we do it as us, and not as the trio, well, I'm worried that someone would start to get suspicious." She said biting her lip. Lilly nodded in agreement.

"Yeah….it is rather risky. But if we need help, we'd have to be ultra careful about enlisting Severus. As much as he is a good friend to me, I'm afraid, he'd get too excited and spill or something." She said slowly.

"We could always send a note." Ashton said thoughtfully. "I mean, like we do to the Maruaders. Ask him to drop off the stuff we need at a certain point." At this Parker grinned.

"That's brilliant." She said quickly, as Lilly nodded.

"Well, tis why I'm here." Ashton said rolling her eyes. "I'm not second in the class for nothing."

"Hey." Parker yelped.

"Sorry." Ashton said grinning at her. "But if the shoe fits."

"Okay, Parker, you do realize that this will take a bit of work. I mean, it's not going to be ready overnight." She nodded at Lilly.

"I suppose it'll be better that way. You know, so that suspicioun doesn't immediately fall onto me." Lily nodded in agreement. "Well, off to the restricted section?" she suggested. The other two nodded and lilly hurried off to the dungeouns, to speak to Professor Slughorn. He was in his private stores and was busy re-arranging things, which he continued to do as he talked to his all time favorite students.

Of course seeing as he was too busy doing both, to realize that he normally allowed no student inside this room, it gave Lilly a chance to survey his stockpile. Her eye immediately fell onto a bright pink vial, there were several, all labeled with a single identical word; Amortentia. Her luck was brilliant. This was far too easy. She continued to chatter with the old Professor, while slipping a vial into her pocket.

"Oh, Professor, I was wondering if I could have a pass to the restriction section. I wanted to look up a few things because I was a bit confused about them." Even as vauge as it was, it was all that Lilly needed. He immediately agreed and waved his wand, having a quill appear and begin writing on a spare piece of parchement, before zooming itself to Lilly.

"There you go Miss Evans. Have a lovely day." She thanked the Professor once more, before darting out of the dugeouns. She was shocked by how simple it was. Of all things, she'd never considered actually stealing it from one of her favorite teachers. After all, she was indeed a prefect. She sprinted to the library, where Parker and Ashton were waiting.

"Come on." She muttered pulling them out the door, before they had a chance to ask about the permission slip. She led them to an empty classroom, and walked inside, lighting the room up, locking the door and placing muffliato and a silencing spell on the door.

"What about the permission slip?" Parker finally asked, unable to contain her curiousity any longer. Lilly simply grinned. "Well?"

"Oh, don't worry. I got it. But we don't need it." She said as the two gaped at her.

"What about making the potion?" Ashton finally asked. This caused Lilly to just grin further. "Come on spill already!" to this, lilly simply pulled out the small vial of pink potion she had stolen.

"Is that…?" Parker asked, not daring to believe it.

"Uh huh." Lilly said nodding. "This, my friends is a vial, of already brewed, Amortentia." At this her two best friends began gaping.

"But…how?" Ashton asked awestruck.

"Apparently, Professor Sluggy, keeps quite a storage of it in his office. I was lucky enough to swipe some." Lilly said, unable to wipe the smirk off of face. "He had several vials, so I swiped one and then duplicated it, and left the newest one. Just in case." She said shrugging.

"Lilly….lily…you're brilliant!!!!" Parker yelped, dancing around the room.

"Yes, yes, thank you. I am now a brilliant clepto. No need to get excited." Lilly said grinning. "Well, now we can do this sooner, but still we should wait awhile. For a few reasons."

"Which are?" Parker asked grinning.

"Well, we don't want anyone pointing the blame to you, not to mention, I want Slughorn to forget. It shouldn't take too long, few weeks at most. And thirdly,

"the longer they keep, the stronger it is." Ashton and Lily finished together.


	7. Chapter 7

_Okay, Several of you, will probably be annoyed. I am working on an update, one that I am getting excited about while I write it. But I realized that this is kind of hard to read, so I'm going to split up Chapter one, so that it's not quite as long, and so that no one misses any important information. I hope you guys enjoy the story._

**The Prank**

**March 21**

"Okay. This'll be good." Parker said. She couldn't wait to get him back. After everything he had done over the past month. He'd kissed her about four times, not to mention all the times he tried. But she'd been waiting for this for ages. Today had finally arrived!

"You bet. Now stop watching. You're going to clue him in." Lilly ordered, as Parker finally yanked her eyes away from Sirius Black as he continued drinking the laced pumpkin juice. A few minutes later, there was a loud outburst, from said target.

"BECAUSE I'M IN LOVE WITH JAMES POTTER!" at this the entire student body stared at Sirius. Remus stared unblinkingly at him. The timing was impeccable, because at that very moment, James had walked into the Great Hall. Sirius immediately jumped up and began babbling onward as he started towards him. The entire hall was silent in shock. To the girls dismay, Remus, wasn't fourth in their year for nothing.

"RUN JAMES!" he yelled, as he dove after Sirius, who had gotten rather close. James, who had overheard the original outburst, didn't need to be told twice. He disappeared the moment the words left Remus' lips. Sirius, however, didn't play Quidditch for nothing. He easily threw Remus off and stumbled after James. Remus wasted no time and yelled for Peter, before stumbling after them.

The moment the other two Marauder's were out of the hall, every student exploded in laughter. The three girls were crying, because they were laughing so hard. The teachers were staring in shock, and Professor Dumbledore, had those familiar twinkles in his eyes, and even Professor Mcgonagall was having a difficult time keeping a small smile off of her face. The Hall was in a fit of laughter, and it seemed that it couldn't be stopped. No one seemed to know what had happened exactly, many wondered if it was the trio, or if it was another group, seeing as there wasn't a triangle. Eventually, it quieted down enough for the headmaster to gain the attention of the student body.

"Well, this morning has certaintly been interesting." He said, causing another wave of laughter. He waited for it to die down before continuing. "As you are all well aware of, the use of love potions are forbidden at Hogwarts. They can be extremely dangerous, and no doubt Mr. Potter will not be in any classes, seeing as he's on the run, at the moment. I bid you all a good day, and if you see either of Mr. Potter or Mr. Black today, acting strangely, please contact a teacher." While Dumbledore spoke, the familiar triangle suddenly floated up into the air from between the Hufflepuff and Ravenclaw tables.

"It seems we have found the culprits." He said, a bemused expression on his face. With that he swept from the Great Hall, after beckoning to Slughorn and a few other teachers. The moment they were gone, the students began chortling as they started getting ready to head off to classes.

Dearest Marauders:

We never realized that congratulations were in order for two of your numbers. , and MR. Padfoot, we hope you have an enjoyable wedding. After all, we believe that you two will make a rather adorable couple. =D

Of course, we did have a specific reason for this prank... hopefully you got it...if not, that's rather depressing. Oh well. But we do have a request, in addition to our normal ones. It's rather simple, and we're quite sure that you can follow it to a tee.

Leave Parker Mckinnons alone. Do not speak to her, approach her, anything, save for Quidditch practice. If not, well, there shall be dire consequences. Oh, tell anyone of this, something will happen immediately. –P.E.

(We'd like to point out, if you see her about to die, or something, and you don't have anything to do, feel free to save her from her ultimately death.—MR &HB)

Another request, as per usual. Step it up. we're getting rather bored with this contest, that you are pathetically losing. We want some real competiton. –MR

Better yet, please, give us a better response. Seriously, that last one was pathetic. Sigh, I may be tempted to slip you four a love potion each. You're lucky we didn't give it to Moony. I mean after all, he's the brains of you four. –HB

_Till next time ..._

Sirius and james were staring at the letter, seething. It had been them. How dare they? No one embarrasses them. Especially like that! They were the Marauders after all. James quickly shook his head, trying to clear it, so he could start a plan. At that moment, Snape had the mishap of passing. There was some bad blood there, those three were constantly going at each other's throats, and today, James and Sirius needed a stress relief.

Without even thinking, James muttered, a spell, causing Snivelus' legs to start dancing, like crazy. The surrounding crowd immediately began chuckling, as Sirius added his usual taunts, and then turned old Snape gold and red. But this hadn't prepared them for someone to step up. A very female someone, who rarely spoke.

"What are you doing?" Lilly Evans stared horrified as she yanked her wand out and muttered the counter course of the spell James had used. Unfortunately, James added another one at the last minute.

"Just having a bit of fun." Sirius said grinning. She simply glared at him.

"Leave him alone." Lilly said. "Just reverse the spells."

"Now why would we do that?" James asked grinning. "I mean, what's th—Oi! What do you think you're doing?" he asked Snape who had been about to hex him. But before James could mutter another spell, Lilly pointed her wand and muttered, "Langlok."

Sirius stared at her, as did everyone in the hallway. "What did you do to him?" he yelled. She shrugged.

"Take the spells off of Severus." She said cooley. He complied, for once, and Lilly looked at her firend. "Come on, let's get out of here." Sirius of course started yelling at their backs.

"What about Potter?"

Lilly didn't even bother turning around. "What do I care? Figure it out yourself." And with that they rounded a corner. Severus had started grinning at lilly. "What?" she finally asked.

"You hexed Potter. You hexed golden boy Potter. That possibly just made my day." He said as she started turning pink.

"He deserved it." She muttered looking at her feet. "Are you okay? I'm sick of htem doing that." Severus shrugged.

"If they didn't tag team, it'd be easier to defend myself, but hey, it worked out alright, and you hexed Potter." She rolled her eyes.

"I'm not going to hear the end of this am i?" he quickly shook his head. "Well, if you're not careful, I'll hex you next." She said smirking at him. As usual, Severus didn't look to offended, they had an easy friendship, while to other's appeared more of an anquaintence type thing, in reality it was rather deep. They'd met before school started, in fact, Severus was the oen that had told Lilly about Hogwarts. He had been there, all the times that her family hadn't been.

Ashton was walking along the hallways near the Astronomy tower, she was looking for an empty space, and seeing as the Room of Requirement was taken at the moment, she figured it'd be easier to just find, an unusually large classroom. So far, this endavour she had undertaken wasn't working so much. She just wanted to strat pulling her triple axle. She missed doing it, and she was overly excited that well, she finally was able to pull it.

Eventually, she became fed up, and decided to just use the Astronomy tower. It was rather large after all and luckily for her, it was empty. She immedieately pulled up into her scorpion, which for her was a stretch, and then decided to do her bow and arrow. Afterwards, she started on the turns. What Ashton didn't know was that there was a certain individual watching her.

Remus had been sitting in the back corner of the Astronomy tower, just thinking, as he so often did, when that Ashton girl showed up. the last conversation that he had with her mentioned something about three axles and such. He'd been utterly confused, and so he simply started watching her, while she performed some crazy turn. Overall, it looked rather cool, although he had no idea what it was.

He was content to just sit there and watch. This went on for quite some time, and Remus was simply transfixed. But then it all came to an abrubt halt as she pulled out of a turn, and loudly commented,

'Spying on girls nowadays?" he'd jumped, not realizing she'd caught him. He didn't say anything for a moment. Right before he opened his mouth to reply, she had started to leave. He quickly jumped down from where he'd been sitting and landed in front of her.

"Techniquely I was here first." He said smiling at her. Ashton didn't really care. She'd been avoiding him as best she could.

"You could have said something. Normal people say hi." At this he grinned at her.

"Ah, so you are interested in speaking to me." He said. Ashton just looked at him raising an eyebrow.

"Not really." She said dryly. "I just don't feel comfortable being watched as I dance. Especially since it's not a wizard thing. People tend to get a little hostile." At this remus appeared to be offended.

'I'm sorry that you are uncomfortable, but if you're implying, that I think like that, you madame, are most certaintly mistaken." She shrugged.

"How am I to know how you think?" she asked. "I don't know you, for all I know, you're a muggle born." Ashton shrugged her shoulders. "In all honesty, I don't particulary care." She stepped around him and started walking down towards the dungeouns. To her dismay, he simply followed.

"Where are you going?" he asked as he trailed her.

"To get some food." She said simply, as she passed the corridor leading to the kitchens. When Remus mentioned that, she replied, "I never mentioned I was going to the kitchens." He continued to follow her, because he was dying to know where she was going. They were rather deep into the dungeouns at this point, although once more it was the opposite side of the Slytherin House.

She paused in the middle of the hallway, and looked at him.

"Listen, if you're going to follow me, You cannot speak, until I say so. Okay? Otherwise it won't work." he nodded, mostly because he was mesmerized. What girl, or person ever ordered the Marauder's around?" she walked a little further and stopped in front of the portrait with a very badly dressed, deathly pale person.

"What do you vant?" he looked at Ashton, who simply stared at the portrait. It continued to ask questions, and she continued to ignore them and simply stared at them. Finally, getting fed up, he moved aside to reveal a golden spiral staircase.

She started walking up the stairs, and he hurriedly followed. In front of them, at the very top of the staircase was a door that was encrusted with rubies. She quickly walked up to it, and began simply looking at it, before reaching out and touching four of them, after a moment, the door swung open and they entered.

The room held one table, that was empty. The rest were covered with various dishes, from nearly every cuisine imaginable. She quickly began filling a plate, and Remus soon followed, once they had all they wanted, they went and sat down at the empty table.

"What exactly is this place?" Remus finally asked. Ashton simply shrugged, while swallowing a bite of food.

"I'm not sure. But it's better than the kitchens. You can get any type of food in here, muggle wise. One reason lilly loves coming, she's addicted to pop, and well, there's a soda fountain here." She nodded towards a square thing with drinks.

"That's probably the first portrait that doesn't have a password of some kind." Remus said. Ashton smiled at him and nodded.

"Yeah, he doesn't like people staring at him in the eye, especially while not talking. He says it unnerves him. But if you do talk to him, you can learn a lot. He enjoys talking about his time era, he was the leader of a revolutionary or something in Romania and Transylvania. That's where the muggle story of Count Dracula comes from."

"So I take it a lot of people no about this place?" Remsu said grinning. But ashton quickly shook her head.

"No, I don't think so. We've never found anyone down here, besides, the lack of a password is rather genius. People will typically start talking to him, because they'll think it's a password, not to mention, you have to keep eye contact with him. But another thing, no one really ventures down on this side of the dungeouns. Not even the Slytherins, besides, I don't think they'd enjoy this room too much."

"Sirius would." Remus said grinning. As Ashton smiled at him.

"Yes, I daresay he would."

"I do have a question," he said leaning forwards. Ashton looked warily at him. "It's about the lake."

"Which one?" she asked.

"The one on the fifth floor." She grinned and shook her head.

"Sorry, but you're not getting anything out of me. That happens to be one of my favorite places in the entire castle and well, I'm not to inclined to share it with the Marauders." She said as he looked at her raising an eyebrow.

"Why is that? Are we really that annoying?" she shrugged.

"Well, yes and no." she said slowly, giving him a small smile. "But as for the lake, I don't want a bunch of girls up there that do nothing but sunbathe and giggle. It's rather annoying, and then it would no longer be a haven, it'd be more of a hell."

"Understandable. But I'm not Sirius." She shook her head.

"You get your fair share of girls Mr. Lupin." She said as he grinned.

"Remus." He said quickly. "You three, have a habit of simply using our last names." At this Ashton nodded.

"I know." She said simply smiling at him.

**Monday, April 2**

O.W.L.S were approaching. The beginning of May is when they would get them, and well, Sirius Black didn't care less. But what he did care about is how a feisty little, black haired girl, was foiling all of his plans. After the fourth time he'd kissed her or so, she'd finally developed a foolproof plan in keeping him away from her. Hexing. Big time, and she was rather good at it.

At the moment, he was watching her from afar, he was well awared that he and James could be now classified as stalkers, but those two intrigued them to no end. At the moment, he was watching his best mate as he was walking over to where the trio sat, about to ask Evans out again. He'd re-started this after the Qudditch season had ended, when Parker's threat had no more merit. Sirius continued watching, but what he wasn't expecting was the volume of lIlly's response.

"No! Potter for the millionth time!" several people looked up and watched the two with interest. They'd become the latest entertainment if anything. James had started babbling again, and once more lIlly flared up.

"Do you not think for that one second, I'm saying no, because I might already have a boyfriend, in addition to you being an arse?" she asked shrilly. At that Sirius grinned. James had no doubt mentioned that she didn't have a boyfriend, so that she might as well go out with him.

"What house?" he heard James challenge. Lilly smirked at him, as she stood to leave.

"I don't see how any of that is your business. Besides, I highly doubt that you'd like the answer to that question." At that everyone's jaws simply dropped, Sirius' included. Well, her two friends, didn't seem surprised in the least. But anyone who had heard that conversation had now concluded that Lilly Evans was out of her mind. Everyone had deducted that her boyfriend was from SLytherin. Why else, would James not like that answer?

Potions was quite interesting for Lilly. She'd been fuming from her encounter with Potter, while Parker was struggling not to laugh, as was Ashton. Lilly had to admit, it was a decent plan. Lie about dating someone, and he'll start to leave you alone. Lie about dating someone and insinuate that he's in Slytehrin, and Potter goes insane. Ah the glories of interhouse competiton.

'He's staring at you again." Severus had mentioned. Lilly grinned spitefully.

"Want to make him angry?" she asked. Severus shrugged and nodded. "Turn around and smirk at him." Several seconds later, there was a small explosion in the back of the room. Okay, small was an understatement.

"He blew up his cauldron." Severus whispered laughing. "What happened?"

"You're probably going to get mad at me, but I somewhat insinuated I was dating a Slytherin." At this Severus just grinned even more widely.

"Brilliant. He'll hate it." Lilly rolled her eyes.

"Hence the exploding cauldron, Sev. But he provoked me, so I figured he deserved it."


	8. Chapter 8

_Okay, Several of you, will probably be annoyed. I am working on an update, one that I am getting excited about while I write it. But I realized that this is kind of hard to read, so I'm going to split up Chapter one, so that it's not quite as long, and so that no one misses any important information. I hope you guys enjoy the story._

**The Prank**

"Brilliant. He'll hate it." Lilly rolled her eyes.

"Hence the exploding cauldron, Sev. But he provoked me, so I figured he deserved it."

_Why do I need a disclaimer? Obviously, I'm not JK Rowling. Depressing isn't it?_

To Lilly's suprise, Severus wasn't angry. Actually, far from it, he found the situation hilarious. He'd even suggested several ways to make Potter even angrier. Lilly had simply rolled her eyes. After reminding him, the point was to make Potter leave her alone, not attack her friends. Severus had simply began chuckling at her as they walked to lunch together. The rest of her day had been simple bliss; her, Ashton and Parker, had managed to evade the Marauders and instead of going to the Great Hall, they decided to go down to the dungeouns, because they were having a huge muggle food craving.

"So, do you think they'll ever come up with a way to actually beat us?" Ashton asked suddenly. Lilly and Parker both looked up in surprise. "I mean, it seems that they're losing their touch. As much as I hate to admit it, they used to actually present a challenge, but now, nothing."

"I don't know." Parker said. "I mean, it seems like they're just giving up." Lilly shrugged. "I think maybe we should lay off our pranks until they do something." At this Ashton's jaw nearly hit the floor.

"I'm sorry...but who are you?" she asked gaping at her ebony haired friend.

"Sorry?" Parker asked.

"You aren't Parker Mckinnons." She said. "The Parker, I know, would never take a break from pranks. It'd be like her never flying again." Parker managed a bashful grin and shrugged.

"I just want to level the playing field. We can send them a note if you want." she said smirking at Ashton, who's eyes had lit up. She loved sending the notes. Mostly because they infuriated the boys.

"Okay."

_Losers,_

_We have some good news for the three of you. _

_With the lack of action on your part, we've decided to take matters into our own hands._

_Therefore, there shall be no more pranks, from us. At least, not until you lot actually learn some decent magic. --P.E._

_I know...I know, this is such a shock. I mean, after all, we are winning. _

_Infact, you're all probably speechless, and just staring opened mouth at the letter. _

_But let us explain our reasoning. _

_1. We're sick of not having the competition that we used to. We don't want to have to beg you guys to actually get some creativity. _

_2. What's the point of pulling pranks, when no one retaliates?_

_3. We no longer have a reason to prank. Earlier, it was revenge....before that, fun. But now? _

_--HB_

_But we'd like to make one thing very, very clear. _

_Don't try to tell anyone about this. You spill, and you'll regret it. _

_This is between the two of us. No one else. _

_The same rules apply from our earlier letters. With compliance you get a bit of a break from the embarrassment. _

_I suggest you take it. Although, as much as I hope you lot step it up a notch, I don't have much faith, unlike the others. _

_They feel, there might be some hope for you, I don't. You're just spoiled rich kids, with mediocore tricks.--MR_

_Don't mind Mr, too much. Afterall, Mr, does have a few reasons to still be a bit upset. You've got to learn not to provoke people. sheesh.--HB _

_Till next time,_

_Mr, Hb, Pe_

James stared at the letter. So did the rest of his mates. To no one's suprise, all of them were gaping open mouthed at it. (Score for HB) =]

"They're giving up?" Peter asked. "So we win?" The other three didn't speak for a moment.

"I'm not sure." Sirius said.

"They're blaming us." James said numbly. "They want to continue the competition, and they've decided to take a break..." His voice gave the impression that he was rather dazed. But Remus started shaking his head.

"They are trying to provoke us into action." At this, James and Sirius, looked rather offended; Peter just looked confused. "They know that we are competitive, they know that we'll strike back, therefore, they sent us a challenge. However, I don't think we should comply." At this, the boys just gaped at Remus.

"Moony....what?" James asked suprised. "We can't let them win!"

"Exactly. Meaning we have to make sure they cave first and perform a prank before we do." At this, the other three all grinned deviously.

"So, that shouldn't be too hard." Sirius said grinning. "All we have to do is provoke the girls." At this James raised an eyebrow. "Think about it, each time you piss off Lilly, something bad happpens. Regardless of what those girls try to claim, they know who they are."

"You.....you don't think...well, that they are _them_? Do you?" Peter asked. A moment of silence fell upon the group, before all four of them erupted into uncontrollable laughter.

"You're joking right!? Those three? They're the most bookwormish, rule-following trio there is!" Sirius said. "There's no way in hell that they're _them._ They all continued chortling as they walked back up to the castle.

"Lilly! Lilly wait up!" Lilly groaned, as she heard him. He wouldn't leave her alone! All she wanted was some peace and quiet, but oh no! At every turn, there he was, running after her, trying to annoy the hell out of her. Lilly continued her quick pace, hoping to be able to lose him in the crowd. Sadly, Lilly wasn't Parker, meaning, Lilly didn't play Quidditch. Which also meant, that because James did, he was able to catch up to her rahter easily.

"What do you want Potter?" She asked plainly. "Now's not a good time." He grinned down at her, before loudly, much to loudly, responded.

"Aw, come on, Lillykins, why's now not a good time? I mean, you didn't say that last night?" He said, his tone hinting, at the rather obvious innuendo. Her face didn't even move, She'd mastered the art of a poker face a long long time ago, but her eyes flashed with anger, which wasn't missed by James.

"You, James Potter are a prat and a bloody liar!" she hissed just as loudly. "I've told you time and again, to stay away from me." He only smirked cheerfully at her words, and took another step closer to her. "Did you forget that I don't want anything to do with you?"

"Don't be like that gorgeous, you know you want me." He said cockily. "I mean, you said it yourself." The hallway was staring curiously at them, most gawking. Who would have thought that James Potter would be interested in the bookworm, who talked to no one? Lilly didn't utter a word. She simply glared at him before muttering something under her breath, and in a fluid motion, James was no longer wearing the standard school uniform. Instead, he was wearing yet another Slytherin girl's outfit, while Lilly smirked.

"Nice choice in clothing Potter." she said, before walking away. The hallway was roaring with laughter as James scuttled into a secret passage to go back to his dorm. One thing was for certain, they'd been right all along, she _had_ helped with that first prank.

The moment Sirius walked into their dorm room he was doubled over with laughter, and it only increased with the look of fury that James threw at him. After about ten minutes or so, he finally was able to get his breathing under control, and finally sputtered,

"Mate, what happened?" James' look darkened, before answering him.

"Evans is what happened." Sirius looked up his interest peaked. "I was proceeding with the newest plan, and then I ended up in this. So we were right. She did help them."

"So what are we going to do?" Sirius asked.

Ashton was wondering down in the bottom of the dungeons yet again. Regardless of what everyone said, they weren't as horrible as they were made out to be. There was so many different things down here, and they each were unique not to mention that they were rather awesome. She had just left the golden staircase and was now heading down further into the dungeons.

She finally stopped when she arrived at a painting that looked like something that a guy named Vango or something, she never could get the names straight that Parker was always rattling off, created. At least, that's what Parker had said. She was really into art, and would study, not only wizarding paintings, but Muggles' as well. This one in particular was of thousands of diferent doorknobs, of various sizes, and colors. But the unique thing about it was the fact that they all appeared to be melting.

After glancing around for a moment, she stepped up closer to the portrait and gingerly reached out and touched a smaller one that was dark maroon. It shrunk even further before begining to rotate clockwise. There was a sound that was close to that of dozens of heavy bolts and locks turning, and then the portrait swung open.

She quickly ducked inside and took off her shoes so that she was only in her socks. This was Parker, Lilly's, and her favorite of their favorite rooms in Hogwarts. For inside here, was about three trampolines. She climbed onto the first one and began bouncing like there was no tommorow, practicing jumps that she'd need for dance, like pikes, toe-touches, and herkes.

After that, she switched to flips, the girls were supposed to be coming tonight, she just happened to be here first. Paker, showed up next, and Lilly wasn't that far behind. All three girls were soon squealing with delight, as they popcorned each other into the air, and jumped from trampoline to trampoline. They finally stopped at about three am.

"For crying out loud Ashton! It wasn't Van Gogh! Sheesh, do you ever listen when I speak?" Parker yelped, when Ashton brought up the painting. "It's by Salvador Domingo Felipe Jacinto Dalí i Domènech. He's from an entirely different time period than Van Gogh! Not to mention a completely different style."

"Sorry! You know I'm not into art like you are! For crying out loud, I can't keep all of those names straight!" Ashton said, as Parker gave her a glare.

"Ash, hon you were asking for that. You know not to ask questions at random of Parker, she goes crazy." Lilly interuptted grinning.

"Oh shut it." Parker said. "I'm just obsessed with art is all."

"Obsessed?" Ashton asked.

"At least she admits it." Lilly said grinning.

"So how long until they cave?" Parker finally asked as they began munching on the food she'd brought from the muggle food room. Ashton shrugged but Lilly shook her head. "What?" Parker asked.

"I don't think they'll cave. I believe they have a new tatic." she said sounding rather put out. Parker raised an eyebrow. "Annoy-the hell out of Evans until _they_ attack." she answered. Ashton grinned. "What?" Lilly snarled.

"That's not actually a bad plan." she said grinning. "I mean, it's bound to work after all, especially with your temper." At this, Ashton recieved a handful of xtreme butter popcorn in her face.

"Think we can turn it back on them?" Parker asked, as Lilly shrugged. Ashton however immediately grinned.

"Of course." she said grinning. Her two best friends eyed her warily, as she began to elaborate on how exactly they can turn this around.

~~A few days later~~

It was breakfast in the Great Hall when a very large scarlet letter was dropped into the hands of one Sirius Black. It was obviously a howler, but what was so abnormal about it was the sheer size. Before he could even try to open it, it erupted into flames, and a rather familiar voice belted out,

"Hey Hey You You! I don't like your girlfriend! No way no how, I think you need a new one!" There was a sound of running water as well, and Sirius' was currently the exact shade the envelope had been. It was _him_. Singing in the shower. He groaned, leaning his head into his hands, how on earth did they get this???

Sadly, he wasn't the only to recongnize his out of tune voice. In fact, nearly everyone at Gryffindor table, knew immediatley, and by the end of breakfast, the entire school knew. This couldn't get any worse. No way.

"Well...we definitely won." James said, awkwardly, once the four of them were by themselves. Sirius nodded miserably. Peter for once, was silent. But Remus was staring at the floor deep in thought.

"Actually I don't think we did." he said slowly.

"WHat?" Sirius yelped? "Do you remember the letter?? They said that we were going to have to prank them first!" Remus nodded. "THen explain why you don't think we won."

Remus sighed before nodding. "You are correct. But at the same time...we don't know if it was them." At this the other three simply stared at him. "They didn't claim it. There was no triangle, and they've claimed every single one of their pranks, without fail." At this, they all stared off in silence.

"What are we going to do?" Peter asked.

"That's the question isn't it?" James asked. Sirius nodded.

"I think we should carry on, the original plan, except, we should add to it." Remus said.

"WHat original plan?" Peter asked, looking confused.

"Where I get to hit on Evans." James said smirking. "But what should we add to it?" He asked looking at Remus.

"I think that we should have Sirius begin to bug Parker." At this, all three boys stared open mouthed.

***Author's Note***

_Sorry, that this one isn't as long, but you guys wanted an update. The other one was written over an extended period of time, and I was just figuring out how to use this site. As for Lilly's name, I know it's only spelled with one, 'l' in the books, but I think it's prettier with two. I'm a girl so sue me. =] Hope you guys enjoy this update, R&R._

"Do you think they'll take the bait?" Lilly asked undertoned to Parker, as they walked down to the Black Lake. Parker shrugged.

"In all honesty," she began. "I don't know. I have a feeling they're going to think that we're playing them....at least, Remus will...the others won't....not so much, but they'll follow his advice." Lilly's face drooped at this. "I know it's so infuriating!" Lilly grinned.

"You'd think they'd actually have good pranks...." Parker added.

"Well, they aren't that bad....they had that one...." Lilly said. Parker snorted. "Yeah, okay....they can be a bit malicious, and their pranks are kind of losing their touch.... You don't think it has to do with their nightly escapades once a month, do you?" at this the black haired girl shrugged.

"I dunno, but seeing as Sirius Black is involved, they can't be that great now can they?" She asked harshly, causing Lilly to raise an eyebrow. Sure Lilly didn't like them, but she'd never been on the same level as Parker. She stopped walking and looked at her best mate.

"Parks, why do you dislike him so much? You've never told us, I mean, all of a sudden, last year, you...well...it intensified all of a sudden." Lilly said suddenly. Parker came to an abrupt halt, but didn't turn around. She looked straight up at the sky, before saying....

* * *

Ashton was once more in the Muggle Food Room. At least, that's what she called it. They'd never found a proper name for it. Lilly had dubbed it MFR for short. Mostly becuase she was too lazy to say the entire thing typically. She was so thankful they had a slushi machine in here. Her dad had gotten her hooked on these things when she was like seven. It was somethin special the two would always share.

Brushing aside the memory, Ashton flipped a page in the book she'd stolen from Lilly. It was one she was always reading, "Pride and Predjudice." But she hadn't gotten no farther than the third page, when the door opened. She began twirling her wand in her fingers, as a precaution, but nearly groaned in horror when she realized who had walked in. The nightmare that had constantly plauged her and her friends ever since the begining of term.

Luckily for her, only one really recognized her. Black and Potter were far to busy making her friends angry than to pay attention to Ashton. It was quite helpful when she thought about it. You'd think that Ashton would be the silent one, the shy one of the group. But in all honesty, that was Lilly. The only reason people didn't seem to think so, was because Lilly kind of had anger management issues....while Ashton was pretty nonchalant.

Therefore, when Lilly blew up, everyone saw her, and not Ashton who was the one who was always hopped up on sugar and what not. Parker was a bit more outgoing than the two of them, but was also at the same time far more reserved. Ashton smirked, at the thought. Becuase if one really thought about, they were walking contradictions.

about, they were walking contradictions.

"Moony what is this place?" Sirius asked looking around with glee. None of them had realized that Ashton was sitting in the back corner in an oversized chair, quietly eating sour gummy worms, pringles and slushies. Hey, it's an awesome combination, and she had her dad to thank for introducing it to her.

"Dunno." he said. "Something where there's only muggle food." There was a shuffling of feet a few seconds later. "Here try this." he said, filling a cup of some form of soda.

"What is it?" Sirius asked, cautiously.

"ERm...Coke...." Remus sighed. "It's a muggle drink. Just try it. It's pretty good." Ashton rolled her eyes, debating on whether or not to allow them to realize she was in the room.

_No... **Yes...**_

_1. They'll bloody annoy you to death. **1. You can escape**_

_2. One will probably try to get information. 2. **They will catch you and annoy you to death.**_

_3. You could get information... **3. What information will they have??** _

After continuing to debate these reasons in her mind, one of the boys opened his mouth, causing her to forget everything.

"So....think they'll cave?" It was obvious that Pettigrew kid. She still couldn't figure out for the life of her why they let him join. He wasn't outgoing, he wasn't really a leader. If anything he was more of a follower. She shrugged. Wasn't her business, she didn't know him, well other than he was a good friend. After all, he did become an animungus to help Remus.

"I dunno...." Remus said. "I mean, like I said earlier, they didn't claim that trick. They've obviously found a loophole. We underestimated them." Ashton grinned, she could hardly believe her ears, how she wished for a tape recorder.

"I don't think we underestimated them mate." Sirius said. "I think we angered them so they found away around their own rules." Ashton had to fight the urge not to giggle.

"THat's what underestimating them means." James interjected. "Obviously, we angered Evans, and so she went to them running for help." Ashton of course, immediately began nodding at this statement, although they couldn't see her. But she still found it quite hilarious that they couldn't seem to figure it out that it was in fact the girls.

"What I want to konw is how come they've never literally claimed to be them. No one has, sure, everyone has some sort of idea house wise, but it constantly changes, plus they've never been caught." Sirius said.

"I dunno." James said, slumping into a chair. "Obviously, they're not stupid. They've angered the majority of the student body at one point or another, I'm pretty sure that while there's always someone who enjoys their pranks, that everyone would like to get back at them. It's like how people want to get back at us."

"The only ones who want to get back at us are slimy Slytherins." Sirius interjected.

"Actually, there are a few others. Specially who don't like you." Peter interjected. Ashton bit her lip to keep from lauhing.

"WHat?" Sirius said outraged.

"Well, you have been known to steal a few girlfriends." Remus said. "They're bound to be angry about that. But that's not the point. The point is, that we have to win this. So you both know your part of the plan right?" Here Ashton became very, very interested in this conversation.

"Yes, oh fearless werewolf." Sirius said sarcastically. "Jamsie here gets the pleasure of wooing Ms. Evans in hopes of angering her to provoke them."

"And Sirius is going after her counterpart, Ms. Mckinnons." At this, Ashton had to clamp her hand over her mouth. Black wasn't going to know what had hit him by the time she finished with him.

"You know, that name sounds exceedingly familiar." Sirius said.

"What name?" James asked.

"Mckinnons." He said. "I dunno, it just seems like I've heard it somewhere before."

"Well we have gone to the same school for five years." Peter said sarcastically. Ashton rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, and when did you three even realize they existed?" Remus asked. There was a bit of silence. "Yeah, thought so. It seems to be a pretty common name, Padfoot. I wouldn't worry about it." Besides, she's American! Ashton added in her mind.

"Okay, in other news, I hooked up with Pricilla Fleetwood. " Ashton nearly threw up.

"Seriously?" James and Peter asked.

"Yeah." he said slowly. "Why?"

"Because, well, she's a prissy prude." James said. "I never thought she'd do that. You know she's all about image and everything."

"True. Drove me insane with all the babble about all the important functions she gets to attend. Oh, that reminds me, my parents are driving me insane. Apparently we're supposed to meet some family or something over the summer holidays, I can't get out of it. So, you guys up for it?" he asked hopefully.

"Can't." Remus said. "Full moon." Ashton felt a pang at the thought, _poor guy_. "When is it anyways?"

"No idea. Probably so I can't bring anyone." Sirius muttered.

"Me either. Mum wants me home. She hates being alone for the holidays." Peter added.

"Prongs?" he asked hopefully.

"I'll see what I can do." he said sighing. "The things I do for you Padfoot." Ashton snorted.

_Oh crap!_ She thought, automatically freezing.

"On another note, I swear Minnie and Dumbly are involved." James said.

"What time is it?" Sirius asked suddenly.

"Six-thirty." Peter answered.

"Crap!" he yelped. "Don't you remember!" And then there was sounds of mad stomping and the door swinging open and then shut. Ashton finally allowed herself to relax.

"Figured it was you." a voice sounded from behind her. Looking up she saw one Remus Lupin glaring down at her.

"OH MY GOD!" she screamed, jumping a foot and a half. Remus smirked at her. "Don't do that! Are you insane? Do you like want me to have a heart attack?"

"You know it isn't polite to spy on others." he said. Ashton rolled her eyes.

"I was here first." she pointed out.

"You could have made that known couldn't you?" he asked.

"Hypocritical much?" she asked raising an eyebrow.

"That isn't the same thing." he muttered.

"Isn't it? You were spying on me." she said.

"Yeah, but you weren't discussing private matters." at this her jaw fell open.

"Excuse me?" she hissed. "You don't know me at all. Dance is a very personal thing to me! There's a reason that I don't perform in front of this school! So don't even try to pass that off as something less personal than what you and your bloody friends discuss. Personally I don't give a rats ass about what girl that Black has managed to knock up!" Remus' mouth plummetted. How on earth did she manage to turn this around on him?

"That isn't what I meant!" he yelped. "_I_ don't even care about Sirius' excapades!" She rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, then what on earth are you talking about? You're secret little plans?" She yelped. Ashton had no idea where all this anger was coming from. She was normally the one who kept her cool, the one who normally kept silent when unbelievably angry. But it was just something about him that infuriated her. The fact that he was being hypocrytical....who knew...

"NO!" he yelled finally. "I'm talking about me being a bloody wolf!" At this she simply rolled her eyes.

"Oh grow up!" she huffed. "Not everyone has a perfect life! So you turn into a wolf once a month! Big deal! There are others in this world who starve to death!" In that moment, Remus had lost his mind. He had strode forward, and snagged her waist, dragging her towards him.


	9. Chapter 9

_Okay, Several of you, will probably be annoyed. I am working on an update, one that I am getting excited about while I write it. But I realized that this is kind of hard to read, so I'm going to split up Chapter one, so that it's not quite as long, and so that no one misses any important information. I hope you guys enjoy the story._

**The Prank**

What?" Lilly said, surprisingly calm. She was quite unable to believe her own ears. She stared at Parker for what seemed like ages, simply blinking uncontrollably.

"Yeah...." Parker said, still not looking at her. Lilly shook her head.

"I need you to rewind and explain...." Lilly said. Parker sighed and nodded, still looking over the Black Lake.

"Christmas Holidays, last year, my mom told me. Sat me down with a diamond and saphire tennis bracelet." Parker scoffed. "As if buying me would make it better." Lilly was dead silent, trying to process this. Could wizards do this? Was it legal?

"When?" she asked. Parker's head dropped to look at her feet.

"This summer is when we're supposed to formally meet and perform the engagement ceremony." She whispered. "I hate this. It's not fair! I hate him! He gets to do whatever he wants, screwing girls without a thought to anyone but himself!" she hissed.

"Isn't there a way out of it?" Lilly finally asked, holding out for a feint hope for her friend. Sadly Parker began shaking her head.

"No. None that I can see. It's international law that purebloods are allowed to be betrothed internationally, and once they're made, you cannot break them, something about starting a war between countries. It's insane!" she yelled. "What's worse is that it doesn't even make sense!"

"Does he know?"

"Pft....I dunno. If he does, he certaintly doesn't care, and if he doesn't he's in for a rude awakening. I will not go through with it. If I have to, I shall knock James Potter out, transfigure him to look identical to me and then imperiuse him and make _him_ go through with it, in my place!" Lilly tried to beat down a smirk.

"Parks, if it's any consolation, I'd love pictures of that....especially their faces when they realized what happened." Parker made a snorting noise. Which pretty much meant that she found the comment, funny, but was far to angry to actually enjoy it.

"I....I just don't understand how my mom can......can be..." Parker stopped suddenly.

"Anal?" Lilly supplied. At this her black haired friend nodded.

"It's just Him? Of all people it has to be him!" Parker whispered. "I hate him. I've always hated him." Lilly pulled her into a hug.

"Listen. I'm sure there's some way that you can get out of it." Lilly murmured. "I'll help you look, and I'm sure that Ash, will as well. But....and this is a but...if there's no way....I have a way to piss of your parents as well as his." At this Parker raised an eyebrow.

"What good will that do?" she asked. Lilly raised an eyebrow back. "Go ahead."

"Thanks. Now, think about it. You're parent's are forcing you into this are they not?" Parker nodded at the obvious question. "Then they obvioulsy expect to be able to boast about it, and they're going to do that through the wedding." Lilly took a breath.

"So...Elope." she said as her friend stared. "Piss them off, do something that you know you've always wanted to do. Go to Vegas, and elope. Make it appear, to your parent's embarrassment, that it was a shotgun wedding."

"Lil, have I told you that you're brilliant?"

"Not lately...." she said.

"Oh shut up. You know you are....you will be my witness, if it comes to that?" Lilly nodded.

"Ash, as well." The two were silent for a moment, simply staring out over the Black Lake.

"Thanks Lil." the only response was a tight hug.

* * *

Parker had opted for a few minutes alone by the lake.

Somehow she had ended up on top of one of the Astronomey Towers. She never was sure how that was possible....she had apparently taken a leaf out of Ashton's book once ago, and had just wandered where ever her feet had taken her. Lilly's plan had it's merit. It would undoubtably piss off her parents, as well as his. But she didn't want to get married! Especially not to him!

He was a prat. An arrogant bully, like no other. He..........he was watching her.

* * *

"Lilly." The girl in question jumped at the sound of her name. Turning she saw her best friend, Ashton. "Lilly, I need to talk to you." Lilly nodded and followed the brunette into an empty classroom. "He kissed me."

"Who?" she asked.

"Remus."

* * *

"What are you doing here?" she hissed, stalking past him. He grinned at her as he began following her.

"Aw, don't be like that darling." he cooed. "You know that you've been dying to talk with me for ages. I know you've been dreaming about that kiss."

"Let's get one thing straight!" she yelled, wheeling around. "I hate you! I hate you even more than Lily hates Potter! I deal with you for one reason and one reason only; quidditch. So get over yourself and get out of my life!" This shocked Sirius for a moment. But he quickly regained his footing as he closed the distance between them.

"Then why did you kiss back?" he whispered huskily into her ear. She froze for a moment, making him grin.

"Because I had taken a bludger to the head seconds before. Don't think that it'll happen again." she hissed before stalking away. Little did she know that she had just issued a challenge, and Sirius lived for challenges.

* * *

"Wait! You kissed Remus?" Lily asked. Her mind was absolutely in shock. First Parker's news and now this. What was going on?

"Well, it was more of I yelled at him and the next thing I know he's kissing me and then I"m kissing back." she babbled. "I don't even understand why!"

"Well, what happened?" Lily asked. About ten minutes later, she was staring at Ashton opened mouthed. "You told him to stop wallowing about being a werewolf? Well no wonder he kissed you. He's probably half in love with you just for telling him that it didn't matter."

"Oh crap." she whispered. "This isn't good."

"Isn't it?" Lily asked sounding rather amused. Ashton simply shook her head.

"OH! I know their plans too. Black is going after Parker." At this Lily paled.

"That's not good." she whispered. "Really, really not good." Ashton raised an eyebrow. "You'll have to ask her." was all she said before the door was thrown open.

"I AM GOING TO KILL HIM!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" Parker hissed. "That no good, dirty, annoying, disgusting, prat!" Lily and Ashton simply stared at her, for a moment or two, before they regained their wits.

"What did he do?" Ashton asked.

"He's trying to hit on me!" she seethed. Ashton bit backa grin.

'You do realize that most girls would consider that fantastic?" Ashton asked, while dodging a pillow that Parker winged at her. "Aw, come on Parks...."

"You didn't tell her did you?" she asked Lily. When the red head shook her head, Ashton looked exceedingly confused.

"Didn't tell me what?" Ashton asked confusedly. Parker opened her mouth, and then closed it again.

"I'm betrothed." she finally said, causing Ashton's mouth to plummet.

"What the hell is wrong with purebloods??" Ashton yelped. "Betrothal??? You aren't a Black! Why on earth would your parents do this?!" Parker gave a hollow smile.

"No...I'm not. At least not yet." This of course did what it was meant to.

"I'm going to kill him." Ashton hissed. "The way he treats you and you have to marry him?!" she yelped.

"Ash, chill." Parker said. "As much as I agree with you, I don't think he knows and I could really care less." She tugged on a locket of hair before grinning.

"Now, what were you two giggling about before I stormed in?" She asked, grinning as Ashton turned bright pink and looked at the floor.

* * *

"I don't get it." Sirius whined to Remus and James. "The one girl that actually hates me....who can hate me? Female wise I mean..." James simply rolled his eyes.

"Sirius, will you let it go? It's not that big of a deal." Remus said.

"Says the guy that never chases girls." James muttered. James looked at the fire missing the look on his friends face. Sirius however caught it.

"Moony....what?" he asked. James looked up and watched Remus closely.

"Er....nothing..." he muttered, still retaining that same pink.

"You kissed someone." James said suddenly. "Who?"

Surprisingly, he simply came clean.

"Ashton."

"Who?" Sirius asked. Remus rolled his eyes.

"Scott. The third girl who hangs out with you're two obsessions." At that they both nodded in understanding.

"Wait....not to burst your bubble but what happened to that insane belief of yours that you shouldn't get attached to girls and all that jazz about your furry little problem?" Sirius mentioned.

Remus simply gained a smile.

"She knows." James said grinning. "You must really like her, if you told her."

"I didn't tell her. She was in the room when we were. She got into a fight with me about feeling sorry for myself." he said grinning like a fool.

"Wait, so then if you were fighting how did you end up kissing her?" Sirius asked.

"I just did it....I'm not really sure how it happened." he said.

"How was it?"

"Amazing." the other two grinned.

* * *

Parker was turning into Ashton. For instance she was currently wandering aimlessly around the castle at two am. She was sure that Ashton was doing the same, just in another part of the castle. Currently Parker was near the Ravenclaw House. But she wasn't really paying attention to anything.

Right now she was trying to figure a way out of going home for Christmas holidays. She didn't particularly want to go home this year. It wasn't becasue she hated her family, it wasn't that. In fact she loved them. They weren't like normal purebloods. Her mum believed that muggleborns were real witches, but she just didn't want them mixing in with the family. Rather hypocrytical but at the same time, she wasn't on the same level as the normal pureblooded belief.

Parker, didn't care. She wanted to marry for love. She didn't care one way or the other whether the man was muggleborn, or even a muggle. Not because her parents were bent on controlling her life. Well, techniquely her dad didn't seem to care. BUt at the same time he gave free reign to her mother. She wanted nothing to do with the Black family.

Sure Sirius wasn't a pureblooded finatic. But he wasn't the man she had dreamt of marrying. For crying out loud she didn't even like the guy. He was rude, and he did nothing but sleep around. Yet she was supposed to marry him? Much less, it'd be a wizarding marriage, and those are for life. There's no going back. Well, actually there was. But that was only on certain terms.

One being that you had to stay married for at least three years, another that it had to be mutual. The only real marriage that was permanant was the blood union. That there was no point of no return. Only in death, and even then, it was incredibly hard to walk away from. At least that's what she'd read about. Typically no one reads the fine print when preparing arranged marriages.

Because then the victims of said marriages would be determined to no end to get out of it.

Parker was so lost in her thoughts that she completely wasn't even aware that she was no longer alone. To be fair, the others didn't either, which is exceedingly sad seeing as they had a map. But at the same time they had a slight reason for being so distracted. She continued staring at her feet, deep in thought, until she walked straight into a barrier. She fell to the ground out of sheer surprise and from being shoved backwards.

"What the hell?" she muttered, begining to push up from the ground. Above her she missed a vocal, "Oh shit!" Which is why she started freaking out when two pairs of hands picked her up. She tried to kick her attacker, but it didn't really work, seeing as they anticipated and preceded to pin her arms, pulling her flush up against his chest.

"Mckinnons, relax." That overly familar voice hissed in her ears. Although at the moment, it was devoid of all its normal cockiness. As if a spell had been thrown upon her, Parker sagged against him, much to her dislike. She had no idea as to why she seemed to be having a panic attack.

"Is she okay?" she was vaugely aware of Potter's voice behind them.

"I'm not sure....." Black said. "How's Peter holding up?"

"We need to get him up to the common room." James answered. "Can she walk?"

"I'm not going to risk it." Sirius answered, before tucking an arm underneath her legs, and lifting her. Surprisingly, to everyone in the corridor, she didn't utter a sound. Something that had she not gone into shock....or whatever it was, would not have happened.

"Go on ahead. It'll be harder to get caught if we seperate." Sirius said to James. "Take the faster route. Peter needs it." His friend nodded swiftly and in seconds was out of sight.

"Mckinnons, what are you doing out this late?" Sirius asked, walking down a secret passage. "You're going to lose your perfect record." Parker didn't say anything for quite sometime.

"Appearances are decieving." She finally said. Sirius was rather taken aback. Especially at her next statement. "I know this school better than you and your friends."

"I find that rather hard to believe." he scoffed.

"Really, and how do you think Remus found out about the MFR?" she asked sounding rather smug.

"MFR?" Sirius asked confusedly.

"Muggle Food Room." she clarified. "He had help. Help from a friend of mine."

"Ooh. Big deal. One room." Sirius said, hoping that he'd rile her up.

"Oh? I was under the impression that you lot were attempting to get into the lake on the fifth floor. But you were unable to due to the fact that you couldn't figure it out." Sirius nearly dropped her.

"How'd you know?" he asked sounding rather impressed.

"I asked a few portraits. That and we could hear you following us." She said still sounding rather exhausted.

"Want to share the secret?" he asked.

"No." she said curtly. "A mutual decision was reached that we didn't want a bunch of blonde bimbos invading one of our secrets." Sirius frowned at this.

"Why are you calling us names?" he asked. Parker began laughing softly.

"I was refrering to the annoying idiots you tend to pick up, but I can see how you mistook yourself for that." Sirius felt his mouth open, as he himself began laughing.

"I suppose I walked into that." he conceded, as they climbed yet another set of stairs. "So why did you seemingly collapse?" he finally asked. He felt her stiffen immediately.

"I didn't collapse, I don't know, and I can walk." she snapped. He bit back a grin at her defiance as he duefully sat her down.

But on her first step she swayed, falling back against him.

"Really, you can walk?" he said snarkly.

"You don't have to be an ass." she said, ignoring the odd sensation of her stomach fluttering as he steadied her by placing his hands on her hips.

"It's in my job description." he shot back.

"That was stupid." she answered. "I could have come up with loads better."

"Are you always this blunt." he asked.

"Are you?" she retorted. He grinned at her.

"Fair enough." he said guiding her forward.

"Why are you being like this?" she asked suddenly.

"Being like what?" He asked sounding rahter offended.

"Being nice." she said. "You're never nice. You're arrogant, and well rather rude." At this he stopped walking, and consequently, stopped Parker as well.

"What?" he asked sounding rather stunned. She grinned to herself.

"Did you not know this?" she asked not bother ing to keep the amusedness out of her voice. "Or have you just been so used to every girl just throwing themselves at you?"

"What do you have against me Mckinnons?" he asked suddenly, spinning her around. She didn't look him straight in the eye for a moment. But then she made sure to flicker her gaze upwards.

"Well, you act like you own this school, and by the way, you don't. You pick on everyone, not to mention you think you're like a God. You jump from girl to girl, simply expecting them to simply throw themselves at you."

Sirius simply stared at her. Without anyone being the wiser, he'd backed her up to right into front of a wall.

"Why do you hate me?" he asked menacingly. Parker didn't even flinch.

"I just told you." she said exasperatedly. He took a step forward, and involuntarily, Parker stepped back.

"No...if that were the real reason, you'd simply say, that I am an arrogant prat." he said growling, as he took another step forward. That was when Parker realized her mistake, the exact second that her back hit that stone wall.

Sirius grinned as he drew even closer.

"If I'm not mistaken, I'd believe it was because you wanted me all for yourself."

"You are sadly mistaken." she hissed. This however only made him smirk all the more, before slipping a hand to her neck, with the other on her hip, he leaned against her, and inconsequently the wall, while he brushed her lips with his.

Parker had lost all coherent thought right about now. Originally she was planning on beating his face in. But like all past experiences, she caved. Instead of following through with her plan, she fisted her hands in his shirt, as she began kissing back.

* * *

"He did it again!" she hissed walking her dorm. Lily and Ashton looked up, surprise etched onto their faces. "Why?" she yleped. "Why does this keep happeneing?" Ashton looked extremely depressed, at her words. "What?"

"Erm....well," Ashton began.

"Just tell me." Parker said wearily.

"Remember Potters, "Annoy-the-hell-out-of-Lily" Plan?" At this she nodded. "They've expanded it to Potter's and Black's, "Annoy-the-hell-out-of-Lily and Parker."

Parker stared for just a second. "Fine. If that's how they want to play it. I'm more than willing to play this little game. But it shall be on my terms not his!" she growled before storming into the bathroom. Ashton soon began to get ready for bed while Lily simply stared at them.

"_I find it really weird. Thank God, Potter's left me alone throughout all of this. What would the gossips think of this, if they ever caught on_?" Lily shuddered at the thought. Nothing good would come of this. Nothing good.

* * *


	10. Chapter 10

**I'M SOO SORRY!!!**

_I totally and completely screwed up this chapter earlier today. Oops, my bad. =] Erm...in case any of you are wondering...that's actually an unpublished fan lib. So congrats! You've gotten a sneak peak. This is the actual chapter six; and I am working on an actual updated chapter that should be out soon. I'd like to say thanks to, the three who caught the mistake. =] Sadly, the reviews weren't signed. But thanks, and enjoy!!_

**The Prank**

OWls were here. Well, to be fair, OWLS were nearly over. The girls had been sitting by the lake after the Transfiguration Exam. That's when everything had gone to hell.

"I dont' want you to make him apologize!" She screamed. It was the phrase that kept echoing in her head. That and along with "I don't need help from a mudblood like her."

_I made it to an empty corridor before I broke down. How could he? We were friends, and now I'm nothing but a mudblood? Five years! Five years of friendship and now I'm nothing. Nothing at all. I'm just one of those mudbloods. I should have known that something was off this year. I had barely spoken a word to him. He was constantly surrounded by his disgusting friends, like Nott and Malfoy, as well as Bellatrix Black. But I never once, thought he'd actually turn. No I'd been ignoring the signs, all those times Parker and Ashton had told me that they heard him call someone a mudblood, not wanting to belive. I kept crying. I stayed in my room and cried all day. I was so angry. I came to expect this from Potter, but Severus? Around two am, I woke up starving, so I walked down to the common room in my sweat pants and crew neck and walked up the boys stairs to the fifth years' dorm and opened the door. _

_"Accio Marauder Map." I said. I heard rustling and then a piece of parchment came zooming into my outstretched hands. I tapped it once and said the password, before glancing at it. Thankfully everyone was in bed, no one was out and about so I left. Diving out of the portrait hole and going straight to the kitchens. I noticed that Dumbledore was sitting in his office. But everyone else was sound asleep. After I'd eaten, I just went back to bed._

For about two weeks after this stunt, Lily had stayed away from everyone. After about a week, Ashton and Parker had enough. They not only followed Lily everywhere, but the moment that James showed up, or Severus for that matter, they automatically had a hex sent their way. There was no excuse for their behavior.

After blowing up at them, they began to back off, and Lilly spent the time by herself. She pulled away from Ashton and Parker, and they allowed her to, knowing that she needed to figure out what she was feeling herself. In all honesty, this was a rough time for all three of them.

Parker was under quite a bit of stress; she had to go home and prepare for a betrothal ceremony that she didn't want with someone she honestly believed that she hated. She kept the information to herself but after that night that she'd been caught by Sirius, she'd had a few more episodes like that; and so she went to Madame Pomfrey.

The kind healer promptly told her that she had an anxiety attack, and that she needed to lower her stress levels. Although she was quite convinced that she'd be fine since OWLS were now behind them. She had made Parker promise to report any other ailments as well as to try and keep herself healthy.

Ashton was currently doing her own thing. She had recognized that both of her friends needed space. That much was evident, especially Lily; that scene by the lake had destroyed the quiet redhead. There was a reason that she was so quiet, a reason that only Parker and Ashton knew about.

By the time term officially ended the trio was rather glad. They needed the summer holidays to separate from the Mauraders. Things had gone too far with them and it needed to stop; it needed to be reversed.

The three girls sat silently in the compartment the entire way back to Kings Cross Station. They were all wrapped up in their own little world. But as they stepped out onto the station, they each hugged each other, with tears in their eyes.

"Make sure you owl me." Parker whispered to Lily and Ashton. "I'm going to need you guys this summer. Especially at the….ceremony." Ashton and Lily nodded and pulled her into another tight hug, before sepearting towards their drivers; Ashton walked off to join her mom, while Lily realized that no one was here to pick her up.

"Want to share a cab?" Parker asked Lily. The redhead nodded, trying to hide the tears in her eyes. "It's okay. You're going to come stay with me okay? Just tell them when we get there. I'm sure it'll be fine."

To Lily's surprise, no one was home when she got there. In fact, it appeared as if no one had been there for some time. She looked at Parker worriedly, before she noticed a penciled marking on the calendar in her sister's pristine handwriting.

Vacationing in Madrid.

There was an arrow pointing towards a date in mid July. Lily nearly burst into tears at the sight of it, her family went to Madrid without her. A vacation that had been _her_ idea, one that _she_ had planned, and they left two days ago, without_ he_r.

Parker watched her with angry tears of her own. How could this family do this to their own daughter? They were supposed to love and care for her, instead they run off and leave her. After a moment she began to write a letter to the family.

_To the Evans, _

_Seeing as you have failed to bother to remember your youngest daughter, she will be staying with me, for the duration of summer vacation. I am ashamed and appalled that you would do something like this. _

_In case you actually remember how to use your brain, here's my owling address. Btw, I live in the States. _

_Parker Mckinnons._

"Lily, if you want anything specific, go ahead and get it now, and then we'll head to the ministry of magic." Parker said, as her friend nodded. While Lily had gone upstairs to retrieve a few necessary summer items, Parker took the time to look around her friend's home. It was nice, modern, but at the same time, she began to notice that it lacked current pictures of Lily. Oh, there were several from when she was younger, but not of late.

By the time they reached the Ministry, it was a little after one. Parker led Lily to the International Travel department for their portkey that was set to go off in about five minutes. Both girls were even more subdued during this trip; where normally, Lily would have been gaping around at the grandeur of the building.

After filling out the required forms, they were granted their portkey and were soon spinning away to Chicago's branch office of the American Ministry. There she was met by two of her older brothers; Jack and Aaron.

"Parks!" Jack called, upon seeing her. He ran up and pulled her into a tight hug, his hair flowing in long dreds that looked as if they were midnight blue. Aaron immediately noticed the girl following his baby sister; his first impression was that she was gorgeous, which was quickly followed by him realizing she looked like she'd been hit by an emotional train.

"Jack, Aaron, this is my friend Lily. Remember, the one I told you about?" she said giving a small smile as they all said hi. "I know it's short notice, but Lily needs a place to crash and I figured mum wouldn't mind."

Aaron grinned broadly. "Now when you say mind, do you mean notice?" Parker glared at him and shook her head, trying to signal that now was not the time to joke of such things. Thankfully, aaron promptly shut his mouth, and settled for a sheepish grin.

"Shall we?" Jack asked, while snagging Lily's trunk, as Aaron took Parker's. They quickly walked over to a nice black Porshe that was sitting by the curb. Parker grinned and lept inside it; while Lily followed at a slower pace.

"Mother." Parker said in a greeting upon walking in the house. "May I speak to you for a moment?" Her mother smiled warmly and nodded before beckoning her towards the study.

"Yes, darling what is it? How was school?" Caroline Mckinnons asked, sitting down at the desk. "You look gorgeous by the way." Parker glanced around the room for a moment.

"Thanks." She said softly, wondering why exactly her mom was trying to butter her up all of a sudden. Then she nearly mentally smacked herself on the forhead; the betrothal. Duh! "My friend Lily needs a place to stay." She said, "Her family is a bit unsupportive of her, and they weren't at home when we got off the train; they're in Madrid until further notice.

"I couldn't leave her alone, so I brought her along." Parker said looking at her mom who smiled and nodded.

"Yes, that's fine. This is Lily Evans?" she asked. Parker nodded, "Good, I've been wanting to meet her; and she'll be here for the ceremony." At this mentioning, Parker's eyes narrowed quite a bit. "Does Lily know Sirius?"

"Yes. We all are in Gryffindor together." Parker said stiffly. "If it's alright, I'd like to show Lily to my room now." Her mother nodded, and Parker quickly slipped out of the room glaring maniacly at everyone who crossed her path.

Lily spent the day sleeping in her room. It was quite obvious that with everything that had happened in the past few days was stressful. Parker's heart went out to her friend; Lily had always been there for her and Ashton. Always putting htem above herself no matter what, and now it was finally time that Parker got to return the favor. Brushing the thoughts aside, she quickly wrote a letter to Ashton, explaining what was going on.

The summer went by quickly, and to Parker's immense dismay, that fateful night was upon them. She stared in the mirror at her reflection; she didn't even recognize herself. At the moment, she looked like a puppet. An instrument of her mother's, go figure.

Her mom wanted her to wear a nice, pink and frilly dress. Just like a little doll.

"Erm….Parker." Lily said, upon entering the room. "Don't take this the wrong way, but who dressed you?" Parker grimaced before telling her. "Stay here. I'll be right back." True to her word, she reappeared a few minutes later, with Aaron's wand.

"Lily, did you steal my brother's wand?" she asked warily.

"No, he lent it to me. I'm going to fix your dress." She said grinning as she began pointing and performing spells. By the time she looked up in the mirror again, Parker looked like herself once more.

She was wearing an ebony nylon dress that reached the floor. The neckline plunged; ending just before her bellybutton. It wrapped around her neck, in a halter top type fashion. The skirt was fluid, and moved about her, like water. Her hair was done in a gorgeous curly up-do, with one long tendril cascading down the left side of her neck.

Lily was dressed in an emerald green; an identical shade to her eyes. The dress was a sweetheart cut bodice that was beaded; and laced up in the back like a corset. It was a strapless ruched taffeta trumpet gown and it looked spectacular on her. Lily had lengthened her hair to her waist, and then twisted it upwards, on the sides, so that it appeared to be a crown that melted into the back, and her long curls cascaded down her back.

"I'm not going to lie," Parker said slowly. "Merlin we look fantastic." Lily grinned, one that actually reached her eyes. "I wish that I didn't have to do this," she whispered. Lily pulled her into a tight hug.

"Parks, do you remember what I told you back in school?" Lily asked quietly. Parker gave a small nod, and Lily smiled at her. "Then remember, if they make you do this, you're going to give them hell and not only that, you look bloody gorgeous while doing it."

"How did I ever get so lucky to get you as a friend?" Parker whispered.

"I think we both lucked out." Lily said softly, "Perhaps it was fate that allotted us this happiness; perhaps they knew that we would need one another in our futures. Remember, Ashton and I are always going to be here for you, through thick or thin."

Before anything else could happen, there was a sharp knock on the door. Both girls turned to it expectantly; although surprised when it revealed to be Jack. His jaw dropped as he looked over Lily and his baby sister.

"Wow, guys," he said. "You look spectacular." They both smiled shyly and murmured a thanks. "You realize that Mom's going to kill you when she realizes that you're not wearing the horrid dress she chose right?" he asked raising an eyebrow.

"Actually, she is." Lily informed him, while twirling the wand in her hand. "It's just designed much, much better." Jack began laughing, and then noticed why the wand looked so familiar.

"Is that?" he began, only to be interrupted by Lily giggling and nodding. "Thought so." He said with a grin. "But for now, it is time to descend to the depths. They'll be arriving at any moment." Jack explained, not missing Parker's eyes glazing over. "It'll be okay sis, don't worry, you've got two older brothers who went through this, and four whom will all kill him if necessary." Parker managed a feeble nod.

"I hope you and Aaron won't have to." She whispered, "I doubt I'm going to forgive mum for this." Jack nodded.

"If it helps, Brody and Kyle are happily married men." He said smirking, while Parker rolled her eyes.

"Really? Do you think that might have something to do with the fact that Brody's wife Allysa is addicted to sex, and that Kyle got to marry the girl he actually fell in love with?" she hissed while Lily stared wide in shock.

"Er….yeh that could have something to do with it." Jack acknowledged, with a smirk. "But you know that Mom is only doing this to protect you." Parker raised an eyebrow, and stared at him.

"Explain now." Lily said, as the door slammed shut and locked behind him. Parker nodded in agreement, as Jack looked at the two of them.

"Alright, the reason she's marrying you off to the Black Family is because she doesn't want Voldemort attempting to kill you." He said as both girls stared at him.

"You've got to be kidding me!" Parker snarled. "So her solution is to throw me to the fucking wolves? They're heavily into purism!" she yelled. "They'll try to kill Lily if they get the chance." She hissed. Jack held up his hands, and nodded.

"I never said that I agreed." He said softly, "but Parks, Mom will stop at nothing to protect you, even if this plan is entirely warped." Parker nodded vaguely, as Lily wrapped her arms around her.

"Parks, remember, that Sirius is different. He's a Gryffindor remember?" She said softly in her ear. Parker nodded and took a deep breath. "Are they here yet?" Lily asked Jack, he shook his head in a soft acknowledgement.

"I'm going to go to the bathroom real quick." Lily said stepping back, as Parker nodded. The moment she was out of the room, Jack pulled his sister into a hug.

"Promise me one thing," she whispered. "Please, don't leave Lily's side tonight; if you have to, make sure Aaron is next to her. I don't care whatever reason it is, act like you're her bloody boyfriend if you have to. Do you understand me?"

"Yes, you've got my word, as long as you promise me one thing." He answered. "Don't you dare change. No matter what happens, you are to still be you. Got it?" Parker nodded and they stepped back as Lily reentered the room.

"Shall we?" she asked, smiling slightly. Jack nodded, but Parker paused. "Can you give us a minute, just wait outside for a second will you?" Jack nodded and the shut the door behind him. "Parks, don't be nervous." She said softly.

"Lily, promise me something." Parker said quickly.

"Anything." She said swiftly.

"Stick close to Jack or Aaron." She said, quickly. "These are the Blacks. They are purists, lily. Meaning they cannot find out that you're muggleborn. They'll try to kill you; and I can't have that. Besides, I don't trust whom they're bringing; I have a feeling Bellatrix shall be here." Lily nodded.

"I promise." She said softly. "But I'm not leaving your side until I have to." Parker grinned.

"You best not." She said teasingly, as they began to walk towards the door. "Don't worry, Jack is already aware of the plan." Lily nodded. As they opened it, Jack offered them a wide smile, and held out his arm to Lily, who graciously accepted it, with a soft smile.

"They're here." With those two words, Parker had frozen for a brief moment. But Lily grasped her hand and squeezed it lightly.

"Don't worry." She said, 'You're going to blow them out of the water with how gorgeous you look; you'll easily be the best looking girl there, well with the exception of me." Parker rolled her eyes, while trying not to laugh. It didn't work, especially once Lily had began chuckling.

At the staircase they decided to have Jack and Lily follow Parker, so that she would have a grand entrance persay. Parker and Lily also didn't want Sirius or Bellatrix to recognize her persay, and with Parker's black tresses designed how they were, she wasn't entirely recognizable. Lily on the other hand had her fiery red hair, and the way she had stood up to Bellatrix, it was quite evident that she wouldn't have been forgotten.

As Parker began to descend the grand staircase, she looked out over everyone, who had turned to stare at her. She kept her head up; she wouldn't allow them to know how much she hated each and every single person in the room. Her eyes washed over a familiar face; one who's hair was increasingly familiar, she bit back a smile. Lily wasn't going to be happy, not one bit.

The moment she hit the pavilion at where they all were at, her gaze connected with Sirius, at the same time as they introduced her; she smirked as his eyes widened in shock, before she turned to watch as Lily and Jack came down.

Parker smiled as she saw Jack and Lily laughing together, as they descended the staircase. Lily looked gorgeous, like she'd just walked off a runway. Once they joined her, Lily squeezed her hand, hiding them from view behind the two girls.

"Lily, I need to tell you something." Parker said whispering in her ear. Lily looked up at her friend appearing a bit confused. "You aren't going to be so happy about this development." Parker added, as she began to notice several people moving about.

"What is it Parker?" Lily asked warily. "It's not like Potter's here or something, Merlin that would be horrible." She said laughing. "I can just imagine him being rather smug about the whole thing." She said smirking.

At these words, Parker bit back a grin. This evening would be rather eventful at least. But Parker never got a chance to warn Lily because that's when another group showed. Bellatrix approached them, accompanied by Narcissa and Regulas Black. All six of them eyed one another, before speaking.

"Hello." Bellatrix smiled at Parker. "Bellatrix Black; I'm Sirius' cousin, and this is my little sister Narcissa; and this is Sirius' brother, Regulas." Parker smiled and gave a small curtsey, as was the pureblooded custom.

"Parker Mckinnons," The girl said introducing herself. "This is my brother Jack and this is my friend Lily." The redhead gave the same small curtsy; at which Bellatrix smiled in approval.

"So, what school do you attend?" Bellatrix asked, quickly, obviously wondering about their magical ability. Lily and Parker smirked at one another.

"Hogwarts actually," Lily answered smiling at her. "We just finished our fifth year," at her words, Bellatrix nearly choked before staring up at Parker who was smiling at her.

"You mean you're the Gryffindor?" she asked sounding shocked. Parker laughed and nodded, "I'm afraid that I mistook you for someone else." She began, but Parker waved her off.

"It's forgotten." She said simply, while Bellatrix smiled at her, before turning to Lily and appraising her.

"I suppose you're the other." She said, grinning when Lily nodded, looking sheepish. "Rodolphus!" Bellatrix called, not bothering to turn around, about two seconds later a rather good looking man appeared.

"Yes, Bella?" he asked looking down at the girl in question, while she nodded towards the three before him.

"This is Sirius' fiancé, and this is Lily. She's the girl I told you about." At this, Rodolphus' eyes lit up, while Lily kept a smile in place, quite glad that she hadn't given Aaron back his wand yet.

"So you're the one who actually beat Bella?" He said smirking at her. "She kept going on and on about this pureblooded little chit who actually managed to beat her." Bella smiled at him and gently shoved his arm.

"I'm sure it was a fluke." Lily said smiling. "After all, I was only a fifth year." But Bella was shaking her head.

"Nope. She used wandless magic. She's a talented girl." Lily blushed lightly, but made no response, because at that time, Parker's mother showed up, and immediately began speaking to Jack.

"I thought you agreed to get rid of the dreds for the evening." She said quietly. Jack nodded and scrunched up his face, two seconds late his hair was normal, and flowing. Much like the young Keanu Reeves in the new, "Bill and Ted's Excellent adventure'.

However, the moment Caroline had disappeared; he had his dreds back in place. While everyone, save for Lily and Parker. He grinned at them all before beginning to explain.

"I'm a metamorphous." He said grinning, while the other four nodded and grinned. It was then that the announcement was made, the one where everyone stopped and had to listen as they started explaining how great the two families were, and how wonderful it would be to be linked to one another.

The entire time, Parker was rolling her eyes, and cracking jokes that only Lily and Jack could hear which explained why they were staring at their feet and trying to stifle their laughter, as opposed to actually listening.

"Now, if Parker and Sirius could join us;" Parker was jolted out of her current state to stare up at her father, who was staring straight back at her. Not allowing her time to speak, she grabbed Lily's wrist and pulled her up with her. At least that was the plan; Jack decided to interfere, by snagging Lily's waist and prodding Parker forward.

Sirius did nothing but stare at her. Parker on the other hand, would do anything but look at him. She stared at Lily while they performed the binding ceremony for the engagement. Lily's eyesight didn't waver, as she kept mouthing, 'it'll be okay."

Once it was finished, everyone applauded, and then it was announced that Sirius had to kiss his fiancé, seeing as it was tradition. Parker didn't look so excited; and Sirius seemed to understand that so it was rather chaste.

Lily stayed next to Jack, knowing that she felt more comfortable out of the way, of things. She felt so surreal, talking to Bellatrix, whom hated muggleborns. Yet here she was, convinced that Lily was a pureblood, simply because she knew a simple custom as well as a duel the two had.

Parker and Sirius were appearing to not even talk as they danced. Lily had a feeling that Parker was trying to think that she was dancing with someone else, and she had no clue as to what was going through Sirius' mind.

Although she knew that Sirius couldn't take his eyes off of her. Lily smiled as she watched the two together; at present they at least appeared to be happy with the match, no matter what she really knew. When the second dance began, everyone else joined in.

Lily decided to slip out then, and use the restroom, knowing that once Parker was free, she wouldn't be. After telling Jack that she'd be back, she slipped out the nearest door, and slipped out. On her way, back she wasn't so lucky. She had nearly made it to where Jack was standing when the one person she was least expecting was staring straight at her with a rather curious expression upon his face.

She quickly averted her gaze so that he couldn't see her face hoping that he would just move on and forget about her. She kicked herself; she should have realized that he would be here. Not only was he a pureblood, but he was Sirius' best friend. Lily stilled when she realized that this was what Parker had been talking about.

Sadly, as she was deep in thought, she didn't realize that he'd crept closer to her. In fact when she glanced up she was looking directly at him. Neither spoke for a moment or two. Lily was trying to figure out the best way to disappear, when he shocked her.

"Can I have this dance?" She nodded meekly, as he took her hand and led her out on the dance floor. "So, how do you know the bride?" He asked, seemingly oblivious. She thanked Merlin for small favors, that and Parker for teaching her and Ashton how to use American accents as a joke at one a time.

"School." She said trying not to laugh, as she heard her new accent. "What about you? How do you know the groom?" James turned them in a circle, before answering.

"Same. He's pretty much a brother to me." Lily smiled at that one.

"Yeah, same for me." She said softly. "She knows me better than anyone I know; with the exception of maybe two others." Without her notice, James had pulled her closer.

"So you've got three best friends?" he asked lightly. "That's how I am." But she shook her head.

"No. Just two, the third…we….we sort of had a falling out." She whispered, "one I never thought would happen." They were quiet for the rest of the dance, before it ended, before he could say anything, Lily slipped away and back to Jack.

"I am going to kill your sister." She hissed so that only he could hear her. Jack bit back a grin.

"And why is that Lils?" he asked teasingly. "Surely you're not jealous of her betrothal?" Lily rolled her eyes.

"Merlin no," Lily said. "But….she…..gah!" she breathed deeply. "There's' a guy here, who tends to make fun of me at school and I really don't like him." She explained, "And I sort of just danced with him."

To her dismay, Jack simply began chuckling. She scowled at him, but didn't get to say anything else to him, as Parker showed up, at which, Lily turned on her.

"You are so dead." She hissed. Parker gulped and put on a sheepish smile.

"I take it that you met him?" she asked, trying to keep the laughter out of her voice. Parker got conformation on that question, by the look in her best friend's eyes. "How'd it go?" She asked warily, while Jack snorted and Lily sighed.

"He didn't recognize me." She said after a moment. "I sort of used the accent you taught me and Ashton." Parker started grinning, at her. "So then I ducked away as soon as possible. You are so lucky that he didn't recognize me, otherwise, Black wouldn't be getting married."

"Ooh, in that case, I need to find Potter." Parker said grinning; moving to step into the crowd, but Lily snatched her wrist.

"Don't even think about it!" she hissed, while Parker and Jack started laughing. "It's not funny!" she protested. "Seriously!" Parker nodded, and looked into the crowd. But her breath caught as she saw Sirius and James talking together in what appeared to be a rather serious conversation. But to confirm her fears; Sirius' eyes shot up and held her gaze.

Followed immediately by James staring at her as well, before moving straight to Lily, and mouthing, what appeared to be, "Evans?!" Parker quickly broke eye contact, and looked at Lily, who was staring at James, with utmost horror upon her face, while Jack began to attempt to stifle his laughter; he was failing miserably at hit.

"Erm….Lils," Parker began, "I hate to break it to you, but I'm pretty sure he knows who you are now." She said laughing. "Don't worry; we'll keep him away from you." Lily looked at her and then to Jack who nodded immediately.

"There you three are!" The trio turned to see Aaron coming to join them. "I've been trying to get away from mom for the past thirty minutes. She kept bringing girl after girl up to me." The three all began snickering.

"Better you than me," Jack muttered, causing Parker to snort. But then Aaron stared at him in wonder before asking him the inevitable.

"Why is that exactly? You're older than me," he said slowly. "Shouldn't she be trying to find you a girl?" Jack grinned as Parker, Lily, and Aaron stared at him for a moment.

"Techniquely that is true." He said nodding, as they continued to appraise him. Aaron looked rather put out, while Lily watched with a rather amused expression upon her face, and Parker, smirked knowing that Aaron was about to pout.

"Then why did you get out of it?" Aaron whined, causing Parker's smirk to grow.

"Because, I may have let it slip that I'm pursuing Lily," Jack said rather casually, while everyone's jaws nearly hit the floor. Lily just stared in amazement, while Aaron looked rather jealous, and Parker was grinning, yet obviously trying to figure out why her elder brother would do something like this.

"Why?" Lily finally asked out of curiosity. "I'm not angry, just surprised." She said not wanting to upset anyone. Jack grinned at her before answering.

"A few reasons, one, being that you're remarkably loyal to my baby sister, and another that I knew my mother was smitten by you in the past few weeks that you've been here. She's convinced that you're a pureblood who was adopted into a muggle family, due to some tragedy." He said so that only they could hear.

"She muttering about how so many people would be after you at the ball, and I casually mentioned that I was taking you." Jack said grinning, as Lily felt herself blush. "So I figured it'd be fine; especially since there's someone that you don't happen to like here."

"Thank you." Lily said quietly, "It was very thoughtful of you." Parker and Aaron exchanged a look, before watching the other two.

"Would you like to dance?" He asked, giving a bow. Lily smiled shyly and nodded, before performing the small acceptance curtsey that Parker had taught her. As the two disappeared off onto the dance floor, Aaron and Parker exchanged another glance.

"I wasn't expecting that." Aaron finally admitted, "Were you?" She shook her head, a small smile in place. "I take it you approve?"

"Yes, I do." She said softly. "Lily has been through a lot this past year, and I think a summer fling is just what she needs." Aaron watched the two of them together. Parker began speaking, answering his silent questions, "No. I don't think it will go beyond that. I have a feeling her mother will be furious that she is here, even though it's because of them. In addition to Lily being wise beyond her years, and will decide that the age difference is inappropriate seeing as she's only sixteen.

"Not to mention they live on two different continents. More so, I know my brother, just as you do. This isn't going to last; he needs someone to get passed Alexia, and Lily will be able to help him do that." Aaron nodded, gulping.

"True, she tore him in two." he said softly. Parker nodded.

"Yes, that she did. This is why this will be good for the both of them." She said smiling, as she continued to watch them dance. The song continued before a slower number came upon them, and Parker grinned as she watched them continue to dance.

"My Lady," she was startled out of trance, as the voice penetrated her. She looked up to see one Sirius Black standing before her. "May I have the dance?" She nodded, looking at him curiously, before glancing at Aaron.

"You realize she still has it?" She asked cryptically. Aaron looked at her sharply before patting his pocket. At his surprise, she grinned, and accepted her fiancé's hand. He pulled her close, so that she was staring at his shoulder.

"So what was that?" he asked softly. "The whole 'she has it' thing." Parker smiled.

"Lily. Stole Aaron's wand." She said softly. "But don't tell." He nodded.

"How long have you known?" He finally asked. 'About the ceremony, I mean." Parker stiffened.

"Please, could we not talk about it?" She asked softly. "Just for tonight, let it be like this." He nodded, and pulled her closer.

"Who's the bloke dancing with Lily?" He asked finally. Parker smirked as she rested her forehead against his shoulder.

"I was wondering when that would come up." She said laughing slightly. "That would be my older brother Jack." She felt Sirius nod against her head.

"How much older?" He asked, sounding curious.

"He's twenty." She answered easily. "Don't worry, he knows how old she is; but remember, we're all wizards, age doesn't really matter here." She felt him pull her closer yet again. "How jealous is James?" She asked.

"Exceedingly. He nearly had a fit when he realized that it was her, wanted me to come distract you so he could, as he say, 'woo' her." Parker chuckled. "Sadly for him, it seems his plans have failed."

"Yes, plus I don't think her date would agree to that." Parker said lightly. "Jack doesn't like to share." Sirius nodded, and continued to dance with her.

"Have I mentioned that you look utterly fabulous?" She smiled at him.

"Thanks." She said softly. The evening continued onward with a silent agreement to not argue, to pretend for that this was actually something they chose, rather than their families. Jack managed to keep Potter away from Lily for the night and in turn they both had a good time.

Over all that night taught Lily and Parker a valuable lesson. 'Regardless of the truth, people will believe what suits them most in a situation.' After all, Bellatrix didn't want to believe that a fifth year muggleborn beat her; so she changed it to pureblood. The rest of her family didn't want to disagree with her, so they believed Bella. Parker's mom wanted Lily in the family so she decided to believe that she was adopted by a muggle family rather than muggleborn


	11. Chapter 11

_Hey, sorry I haven't updated, but being a foreign exchange student is well, hetic. Hope you enjoy this chapter, and I'm working on the next. So relax, and if I'm taking to long just send me a message. Enjoy!_

**The Prank**

Ashton hurried down the narrow corridor in a straight line, unlike so many who stumbled, due to the vibrations from the train tracks. Lily and Parker had always been surprised that she was able to do it; regardless of how many times they'd been told it had to do with her dance classes.

She'd slipped out of the compartment that she, Lily and Parks had normally shared, the moment that Parker had fallen asleep which was thankfully before Lily had gotten back from the Prefect meeting. She knew that Lily wouldn't approve of what she was about to do; no matter how right Ashton was.

The moment she reached the compartment that she'd been looking for, she stopped and took a deep breath before sliding the door opened. To say that the four boys in side were surprised would be a bit of an understatement. It wasn't that they were unused to girls coming in, because they weren't. That happened quite regularly; it was the fact that Ashton Scott had never been one of those girls. They stared at her as she turned around and silenced the room, knowing that someone would end up yelling.

"Okay. I'm only going to say this once, got it?" She said they all nodded. "You." At this James stared at her open mouthed. "Shut up. You are going to stay away from Lily this year. You aren't going to speak to her, you aren't going to tease her, and you're going to bloody leave her alone."

James stared at her, for another moment before opening his mouth to retaliate. But to his partial dismay and partial delight, Sirius beat him to it.

"What makes this your decision?" He growled, to all of their surprise she didn't recoil at all, as most people did when face d with the infamous Black temper. "Who put you in charge?"

"You did." She replied coldly. "You all did, the moment you began stalking us. We had the perfect set up. People didn't bug, they left us alone. No one knew who we were! Now we're all bloody well known. Now everyone either insults one of us, or asks us how you're doing!"

"Why wouldn't you want to be known?" Peter asked from behind the corner. "Who doesn't want to be popular?" Ashton pinched the bridge of her nose.

"We don't." She said softly. "There's a reason for everything; whether or not the reason is clear, is insignificant. But you will listen to me. Potter; stay away from Lily. You've caused enough damage for one life time, don't you think?"

That's when she looked at Black. "You can't order me around Scott." He growled, and to his irritation she smirked.

"I don't need to." She said softly, so that they had to listen. "You see, Parker has already decided what to do; you're just getting a warning from me in advanced. Leave her alone." With one final glance at everyone, she left the compartment.

When she got back to her own, she smiled as she saw Parker and Lily passed out on each of the seats. She put a lock on the door, before sitting down on the third bench that connected the first two, and allowing herself to drift off to sleep.

Dinner was a quiet one.

At least for the girls it was; for once they didn't really speak. They didn't need to, they all knew that it was a painful time; and they all knew that one another were there for the other. It was a connection that one could only have between friends who'd known each other inside and out.

It was one of the first nights that Lily skipped her duties as a prefect. She saw Remus nodding to her as he started calling for first years; she began making her way over to him, as was her job. But then she saw those two; Severus and James, and she had zoned out; remembered that day last year as clearly as if it was yesterday and in turn she simply froze and continued walking. She didn't even hear Remus calling out to her, she didn't hear the school chattering and catching up with one another. She didn't hear anything, except those five words, screaming in her ears, "_I don't need help from a mudblood._"

Lily kept walking. She didn't bother going to Gryffindor common room. If she went there she knew that she'd be swarmed with questions about why she didn't help. Not to mention that she'd have to explain to Parker and Ashton. It wasn't that she didn't trust them, it was the fact that she didn't want to talk about it.

She wanted to forget everything that had happened. She wanted to forget about how one of her closest friendships had ended. Lily simply wanted to forget. It wasn't fair. Last year had been supposed to be fun; it was supposed to be about passing and pranking that was it! But everything had changed.

Now instead of being happy the trio was pretty much just well miserable. Parker was betrothed to the whore of a man, Sirius, as she constantly called him; Lily was miserable because she'd lost Severus and Ashton just had no clue as to what to do.

Surprisingly none of the girls stayed in their dorm that night. Ashton went straight to the Room of Requirement, not bothering to lock herself in. Her room was more of an endless dance hall, all four walls lined with mirrors; one with a bar. There was no music player, instead whatever she thought about played for her.

A very slow, sorrowful tune began to emit from all around her, and almost simultaneously Ashton began to revolve in a very slow circle, pulling herself into a tight ball, before slipping into a pirouette. Every move was like liquid, flowing from one to the next, never ceasing in the beautiful dance.

Ashton emptied her every thought, drained herself of all emotion into the music. She needed to escape, and this was how she did that. It allowed her freedom, a freedom from the world around her, to get away from everything for just a little bit.

Breakfast was a silent affair.

Much like the dinner the previous night, all three girls were almost silent. Each had a book that was open and that none of them were actually reading. Parker was surprised that the boys had actually not bugged them yet.

She'd been expecting them to bombard the trio the moment they stepped onto the train. Although she supposed that Sirius was still exceedingly sore about the whole, betrothal business. But then again, that was to be expected. He was no longer to 'whore' around; openly at least that is.

Parker slowly dragged her eyes away from her book to look at Lily and Ashton. Lily's gorgeous red hair wasn't nearly the same color that it was normally and at the moment it was tugged back into a full pony tail that her curls were dying to be free of. Ashton was just, silent. It was what happened when she knew her friends needed space. She was whatever they needed her to be; and she had deemed that it was appropriate that this wasn't something they wanted to speak about just yet.

Glancing around the Hall, she noticed that everyone seemed, well happy. It was rather annoying that there wasn't at least one other depressed person in the entire castle other than the three of them. But then again, to Parker, it seemed that life was rather fucked up.

"I'm going to Arithmacy; I'll see you two later." She mumbled to Ashton and Lily whom both simply nodded, before slipping away from the table and out of the hall. She was headed up towards the classroom, her messenger bag, sliding down her shoulder, as she continued onwards. But without even thinking about it, she simply changed directions, and went to the astronomy tower.

"You shouldn't skip class." Parker didn't even turn around, or react in anyway that showed she had been even heard the voice. She simply continued standing on the wall and looking down over the grounds that surrounded Hogwarts.

"What's the point of attending?" she asked, as she heard footsteps coming to join her by the wall. "When your future has already been decided?" Even as the footsteps stopped beside her, she didn't even bat an eye.

"To fight back, in any way possible." He answered, "knowledge is one of the most powerful weapons." Parker felt a small smirk tug at her lips, but it quickly fell away, as she looked down.

"Remus," she whispered, "have you ever been at the moment when you have absolutely no power, no control, over your on life? Have you ever felt the panic that you will never know what's going to happen next?" She finally looked over at him and he nodded.

"That has been a feeling that I've had quite frequently," he answered softly. "I understand how you feel at that point. But you do have a choice in this situation." Parker looked up at him sharply, before shaking her head.

"No. I don't." she whispered, raising her eyes to his; trying to find anything from them. "Remus, pureblood marriages are meant to be controlled by the 'male.' The Black's are highly traditional; I won't be able to associate with any muggleborns; at best I'll be able to talk to half-bloods. I will have no access to money, I'll be lucky to even have a job."

Needless to say, Remus looked surprised. He didn't say anything for a moment and with each second that passed, Parker felt more and more like she was drowning.

"Parker, while that may be how the Black's are, Sirius isn't his family. He's highly dependable, and he doesn't hold with the whole 'muggleborn' thing. I mean, he's in Gryffindor." Remus said softly. Parker nodded for a moment, but then started shaking her head.

"Remus, how do I know that? How do I know that I'll be safe? Ever since I found out about this, all I've ever seen about him is how much he jumps from girl to girl! He's never going to want me, we do nothing but fight!" She said, as a single tear fell from her lashes.

"Hey, hey," he murmured, grasping her biceps gently. "It'll be okay, you'll just have to start talking with him. Show your parents up." He whispered, "Do this for you, not for them." Parker smiled at this, causing Remus to ask, "What?"

"You and Lily both give nearly the same advice." She said as he pulled her into a hug.

"Maybe you should listen to us then." He said softly. Parker nodded, thinking about the reality of the situation, wondering if it would ever be alright.

It got better.

The three girls began to pull through their mini-depressions, slipping off to their normal routines, by October they were inseperable and to be found in the infamous trampoline room.

"Okay, we need a plan." Parker said smirking at her co-conspirators. Lily simply rolled her eyes as Ashton snorted. "Seriously! We've been lacking as of late, and we need to step up before the so called, 'marauders' do."

"Alright, alright." Lily said. "Do you have any ideas?"

"Um….I'd like to go for something muggle." Ashton said. "That typically makes it better, but do we know whom we'd like to go after?"

"We probably should do something to the Ravenclaws or the Hufflepuffs, I mean, last year we mostly focused upon the marauders and the Slytherins." Lily answered, looking at Parker whom nodded in affirmative.

"I'd like to involve their actual houses." Parker said, looking up at the other two. "I want something that brings back the adrenaline full force." Lily simply rolled her eyes as Ashton snorted. "Oh shut up." Parker said throwing a handful of sour gummy worms at the girls.

"Wait, give those back." She said quickly diving for them, as Lily started laughing.

"Nope! They're mine now!" she taunted, as she started eating them. "Mmmmmmhmmmmmm. Wow those are fantastic." She moaned in delight, as Parker simply snatched the bag away from the middle of the three girls.

"You're absolutely horrid Lily." She said, laughing. "But honestly, what can we do to them? I mean, obviously we haven't hit them in a while, and I think we should."

"Well, are you sure there isn't another reason why you want to go after the Hufflepuffs?" Ashton asked carefully, as Lily raised an eyebrow at the brunette and Parker shrugged.

"Not that I can think of…why?" she asked suspiciously, while a smirk grew on Ashton's face.

"Well, after all that's the house of the social club known as the 'Sirius Black is a Total Heartthrob."

"Oh, you are so dead!" Parker yelled, while diving after Ashton, who'd jumped to another trampoline to escape the wrath of her best friend. Lily sat back and watched as she continued eating the sour gummy worms.

A small smile bloomed upon her face as Ashton shrieked 'Mercy,' followed by, "Lily! Save me Lily!"

"I'd love to Ash, but I seem to be under a leg locker charm," she yelled back, laughing as Parker continued to tickle Ashton.

"No….no….mercy!!" Ashton yelped. Eventually, the two returned to their spots next to Lily who was still eating the sweets.

"So…..anyways," Lily said after a moment. "Any ideas?" Parker suddenly started staring at her in a weird way. "What?"

"What if we used those?" She said nodding towards the package in Lily's hands.

Monday mornings were always the worst day of the week, in the Marauder's opinions. It was the abrupt end of a relaxing weekend and it always went horribly, horribly wrong. This Monday was no different for them.

Remus was the first one up and for some reason or another didn't even think about rousing the others before getting ready for school and walking out the door. So all three of the other boys overslept and they had Transfiguration first period.

Because they were absent during breakfast, when they finally got to class, they were called out, and sent to see McGonagall, on the account of disrupting breakfast. The only one not there was Remus, which surprised Peter, James and Sirius. What surprised them even more was the fact that they were being questioned about a prank.

But what they were upset about was the fact that they had nothing to do with this prank. They had simply overslept; they were innocent, and they weren't believed. McGonagall gave them each a detention, with them complaining every step of the way.

Once they got away from her office, the first person they went after was Moony.

"What is going on?" Remus hissed, as they yanked him out of his Arithmacy class. "I actually like this class, why couldn't you do this during potions?"

"One, because we're in the same class and two, this couldn't wait." James said, while Peter and Sirius nodded. "What the bloody hell is going on?"

"What?" Remus asked. "What are you talking about? Nothing's going on."

"Then why did we just get a detention for a prank that we didn't pull?" Sirius yelped. "What bloody prank are they talking about?"

"Oh." Remus said. "Um…well, I assumed that you guys just pulled one without me." When they just stared at him, he started to continue explaining, "Apparently someone pulled a prank on the Hufflepuffs and Ravenclaws; they filled their common rooms with some type of sweet; worms or something. It's a muggle candy."

"And why is that bad?" Sirius asked after a moment. Remus shrugged.

"Probably because they filled it so full that people had to swim through it to get out of the common room. A lot of people tried to vanish it in Ravenclaw's common room, and it began multiplying. For some reason everyone's upset about it.

"I don't see the big deal though," Remus said after a moment. "I mean, it's free candy, and it's really good." As he said this, he pulled out three bags of the stuff. "Here I picked you guys up some; a Hufflepuff was selling it."

"You sure they aren't cursed?" Peter asked raising an eyebrow at the stuff. Remus shook his head chuckling.

"Nah, they're fine. I should know, I've ate like three bags myself." When they all raised an eyebrow, he simply shrugged. "Hey, they're candy, and they're good. So shut up."

"So, why did you think we pulled this?" James aksed after a moment.

"Because no one claimed it and you three weren't around." Remus answered shrugging. "I mean it's not that big of a deal."

"Are you kidding?" Sirius yelped, "Someone else pulled a prank and we get the blame? Where is the justice in that?"

They were silent for a moment, and it was then they noticed that a certain redhead was walking towards them with her head down. All four boys looked at one another, each raising their eyebrows, before quietly spacing out so that she'd run into at least one of them.

Sure enough, she did, although she didn't notice until she literally walked straight into James. Her head snapped up and eyes did as well, and she pulled some odd cord out of her ear and looked at them surprised.

"Oh, I'm sorry." She said, before attempting to sidle past him. But James was prepared and slid his arm around her waist and turned them in a circle so that she was planted in the same position when she walked in to him.

"What do you want?" Lily asked tiredly, as she adjusted the strap of her messenger bag on her shoulder, so that it wouldn't slide off again.

"We'd like to know why we ended up with detention for a prank that we didn't pull." Sirius said after a moment of looking at her. Lily didn't seem to hear him; she simply stared at him for a moment, before attempting to suppress a shocked grin.

"Why….why would anyone get in trouble for a harmless prank of that nature?" She finally asked, looking at Remus, who simply shrugged.

"Apparently McGonagall said something about allergic reactions and suffocation, because of how they multiplication spells, when people attempt to vanish them." Lily raised an eyebrow and didn't say anything.

"Well, honestly I don't see the big deal. People just shouldn't be stupid enough to vanish them, then they're so no problem what so ever." Lily said after a moment, "and besides, you guys are always in detention. What's one more?"

Remus smirked at this comment.

"The fact that it's not justifiable; besides do you think we actually serve those detentions?" Sirius yelped, while James threw him a glare. Lily raised an eyebrow at this statement.

"Well, then what's one more that you can simply skip. Honestly, I'm not seeing the big deal here. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to be going."

"Exactly where?" Remus asked.

"Ravenclaw common room," she answered. "McGonagall asked me to help get rid of the mess, and I've agreed most heartedly." Lily said smirking.

"Why?" Sirius snorted, "So you can prove you're brilliance?" Lilly shook her head.

"No, so I can eat them. Honestly, why would anyone want to waste Sour Gummy Worms? Remus you interested in joining?"

"Sure." He said as he joined her down the hall. "See you guys later," he called back to the three sixteen year olds who just stared in confusion at their friend and the redhead who constantly just confused them.

Dinner was interesting.

Although that wasn't exactly how the trio would describe it. In their words it would go more along the lines of, "Oh crap,', 'We're screwed,' and 'Only he would do this."

Just at the end of dinner, Professor Dumbledore stood up and captured everyone's attention. At the time the trio had been distracted and hadn't paid attention until their handiwork was called into consideration.

"After the magnificent display this morning in the house common rooms of Ravenclaw and Hufflepuff, I would like to compliment the perpetrators, as some would have them called on their charms that they used to perform this task. I would also like to award two hundred points to their house, apiece for their ingenuity and creativity."

Needless to say, the entire room sat in stunned silence, until Dumbledore said one last statement.

"Oh and five points to Lily Evans and Remus Lupin for bringing me several bags of the delectable treat," Dumbledore then sat back down and started talking to Flitwick who obviously loved the idea of what had just occurred.

"Lily!" Parker hissed, "We're screwed!"

"Oh crap," Lily muttered, "They can find out what house we're in," Ashton stared at them in disbelief.

"You're a prefect; can't you give the points away?" Ashton asked frantically.

"No! I can only do that if I'm head girl, and I'm not." Lily whispered back. "We're so screwed," she muttered.

"Why can't we just split it up, between like, the three houses involved today?" Parker hissed, "That way it wouldn't be obvious."

"I just told you, we can't!" Lily hissed back. "We've got no control over the situation! I wish we could give it to Ravenclaw or Hufflepuff, hell, I'd even give it to Slytherin!"

"Haha, we should give it to Slytherin." Ashton said laughing, "Just think of them having a mudblood lover in the house, as they would say."

"Hey, I take offence, I am a mudblood." Lily said with a smirk.

"I meant none; after all, I'm half a mudblood." Ashton said laughing, before they both looked at Parker.

"You guys are weird." She said, before realizing the entire hall was nearly empty. "Come on, let's go to the common room, that way we find out what everyone's suspicions is, at the moment, I'm pretty sure everyone's at the hourglass."

"You've got to be kidding me," Lily muttered as she shoved her way through the throngs of people littered in the hallways. "It's been a week, stop crowding the halls to chat about stupid things."

In a way it was sort of a compliment. After everything that they had done, under "Those Who Don't Have a Name," People were still dying to find out whom was responsible, whether for revenge or whatever, it was nice to be recognized for once.

But regardless, it was rather annoying to have to deal with crowds of ridiculous girls swooning over the thought of another group of gorgeous boys. Actually the more she listened in, the more she realized that almost everyone thought that a group of boys were behind it.

They had been saved, when somehow, magically or otherwise, Gryffindor ended up with no points. Instead, it split itself; Ravenclaw, Hufflepuff and Slytherin each got two hundred points, leading people to believe that it was a group working together.

It was a nice dream, but in reality that would probably never happen. Ravenclaws were far to snobby to work with Hufflepuffs, in turn they were too scared to work with Slytherins whom looked down on both groups, more so on the Hufflepuffs than the Ravenclaws.

Those two would work well together. They admired each other's intelligence, even if they acted too snobby to notice one another. Hufflepuffs were far more likely to work with the Gryffindor.

Either way, at least it got spotlight off of the girls. The Marauders were now watching everyone whom associated with someone outside of their own house. Apparently they once again believed the whole, "inter-house mixing" theory that they'd given them such a long time ago.

Lily snorted as she thought about how utterly ridiculous everyone in the school was being. To be honest she didn't understand how they could care so much about something as insignificant as this situation, especially with Voldemort on the loose. The kids at Hogwarts were incredibly naïve about the entire world outside these halls, and eventually it was going to bite them in the ass.

It didn't help the situation.

"Scott!" Ashton completely ignored her name. Anyone who she'd want to talk to at the moment, wouldn't waste her time by yelling her last name. Of course that was just how this school worked most of the time. People only bothered with learning someone's last name when they wanted something.

"Scott!" Even though she attempted to dodge behind a corner, she was caught by the wrist. Unfortunately what she wasn't expecting was to be spun into a muscular chest, and then nearly toppling to the floor, but luckily she was caught before that happened.

"Sorry," a deep voice muttered as Ashton attempted to regain her footing. "Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine." She said brushing her clothes off. "Did you need something, --" she trailed off looking up at his face.

"What do you want?" She asked immediately. "I thought you'd agreed to stay away."

"No. If I remember correctly, no one agreed to anything. They merely appeased you; I however, said nothing in either direction. I simply am going to ignore that part and do this," and with that, he somehow tugged her closer and brushed his lips across hers.

Ashton knew that if she wanted to keep her sanity, that this, this couldn't happen. It would complicate everything; the girls need time away from the Marauders, as a necessity, because eventually Lily would kill James, right after Parker massacred Sirius.

But even as she was replaying these things in her mind, her body was doing something else entirely. Her right hand had reached up to wrap around his neck, her fingers entwining in his hair, as she pulled him closer, before brushing her tongue across his bottom lip, causing him to moan and her to smirk.

Somehow her back ended up against a wall, she was faintly aware of that, although she had no clue of when or how that had happened. Finally, gasping for air they pulled apart, and he leaned his forehead against hers, smiling slightly.

"We can't do this," she whispered. "Remus, you know we can't."

"I know," he said smirking, as he kissed her again, softly grinning inwardly as she responded immediately.

"I'm serious," she warned as they broke apart again, although he was never more than a few inches away.

"I know," he repeated. "I'm just not going to listen to you," Remus said as he pulled her in for another kiss that left her breathless. Ashton stood there, speechless as he released her and then disappeared around the corner.

Ashton was on edge at all times for the rest of the week.

She didn't exactly understand where that had come from. Since when did Remus like her like that? Yeah, sure he kissed her that one time, but that had been just a random occurrence, right? Guys didn't pay attention to her; those were all directed towards Parker and Lily.

This had to be a prank of some kind. Ashton was sure of it, after all it was Remus was a Marauder. But what she couldn't seem to get over was the fact that she hadn't stopped. She'd simply said 'no' and he'd agreed, and then proceeded to kiss her again, and she allowed it.

"Ash, are you okay?" Ashton was jolted out of her thoughts by a concerned looking Lily. "You have that look that you get when you're majorly over thinking something."

"Yeah," was all that Ashton said. Lily simply grinned for a moment. "What?" Ashton asked finally.

"Remus kissed you again didn't he?" Once Ashton's jaw simply dropped, Lily began chuckling. "That's a yes."

"How do you do that?" Ashton yelped. "What are you adept in Occulemency?"

"Well, yeah, but the word you're looking for is Legitimacy, and no I wouldn't do that to you, not in this case anyways. The reason I always know, is because I know you. You feel like guys don't pay attention to you, but you tend to miss the ones who are always staring at you longingly.

"Remus just does it in a way that makes sure you see him." Lily answered. " I think you should give him a chance, I mean after all, it's Remus Lupin, Marauder extraordinaire!"

"You just want me to dig for pranks." Ashton said smirking.

"Well, it's more Parker, but she's not here to say it." Lily said as the two grinned.

"Alright, alright" Ashton said, "I'll think about it."


	12. Chapter 12

*Okay here's the reason as to why I've been gone: Moving back to the States and Freshman year of College. Busy girl. Enjoy*

**The Prank**

"Lily!!" at the sound of her name, Lily turned around expecting Ashton or Parker to be running after her, it took her a moment to realize that it not only was it not either of her two friends, but it was also a male voice.

The moment she realized that pivoted for a second time and began to briskly walk in the same direction that she had been originally headed towards. There was no way that she was stopping for him. Uh huh no way on earth.

Unfortunately, someone else intervened on her behalf. Someone apparently either didn't like her, or felt bad for Potter, or both; so they took matters into their own hands and tripped her, which caused her to eat floor.

Just like in all those cheesy movies that her sister Petunia and their mother loved to watch, her messenger bag somehow flew open and her belongings went soaring across the floor. But unlike in those ridiculously stupid movies, there was no cute boy to help her gather her items up as she blushed furiously.

Instead, Lily was forced to pick up all her papers, as James Potter just merely watched her bum. While everyone swirled around her, scattering her papers even further and destroying a few items, he did nothing to help. He merely watched as she finally stood up, struggling to get everything back in her bag.

"Thanks for the help," she said sarcastically, before turning around and walking briskly towards her prior destination.

"No problem," James said as he fell into step with her. Lily rolled her eyes, stifling her anger, in an attempt to not lose house points. Not that anyone would normally take any away from her, it was just, when the most favored student by the staff ended up hanging upside down with his feet glued to the ceilings, people tended to get upset.

"Listen, Lily, I feel like we got off on the wrong foot," James began with a knowing smirk, while Lily continued to ignore him. He latched onto her elbow and spun her around so that she had to stop walking. "Please, just listen," he said after a moment.

"What do you want?" she finally asked, wishing that he could just get this over with for once.

"I think that you should just acknowledge your need to date me," he said cockily. "After all, I am the most popular guy in school, you need to grab me while you can." Lily pinched the bridge of her nose.

"Listen, Potter—"

"James," he interjected.

"You're an idiot." She continued, ignoring him completely. "I honestly don't know how you ever got a girl to date you. Listen and listen well, if you want to keep your balls attached, I suggest you turn around and forget that this conversation ever occurred."

James simply stared open mouthed for a moment, before trying to say something else, but Lily cut him off again.

"Did you forget that I'm a mudblood? I highly doubt your parents would ever approve!" By this, James was frozen solid. "I know how you guys work, you want to prove a point to Severus, but guess what, you're not going to use me."

Without a word she floundered down the hallway and towards her Arithmacy class. Now the problem with the Arithmacy class is that Professor Stevens had a stick that had to be the size of a Yule log shoved up his ass. One that apparently had been applied with a permanent sticking charm, Parker often would add to the generalization.

The moment that Lily opened the door, he stopped teaching.

"Miss Evans, how good of you to join us." He said sounding rather snarky. "Perhaps you would better indulge yourself with flirting and courtships at a better time." Lily's eyes lighted up in anger.

"Maybe you would better indulge yourself in crying about not getting laid at a better time," she countered, causing the entire room to snort, gasp, and just stare at the two. The professor obviously was in shock, because he hadn't uttered a word for about five seconds. Normally he had a snarky remark immediately.

"How dare you?" He finally sputtered. "Detention!"

"What for?" Lily asked, "Telling the truth? Getting upset for a comment that was completely untrue, and unnessacary? Take your pick." Behind her, Parker had her hand over her mouth, and was trying not to snort.

"If you do not take your seat Miss Evans—" he began only to have Lily cut him off.

"You'll what? Give me detention? Take points away?" she asked smirking.

"I'll make sure you lose your badge." He snarled. Lily shrugged and to everyone's shock pulled her badge off and tossed it onto his desk.

"There you go," she said before walking out and slamming the door behind her. The rest of the lesson was conducted with a snarling teacher and a stunned, but delighted class.

Needless to say everyone was talking about one Lily Evans for the rest of the day; or rather that Red head who's a prefect. Lily herself wasn't seen by anyone for the rest of the day. She simply had disappeared.

"You know, you have the entire school in an uproar." Speaking of disappearing, apparently it didn't work so well. Lily turned to see person who had invaded her personal space. It was one whom she never would have expected to see.

"What are you doing here?" she asked dumbfounded. "Shouldn't you be laughing obnoxiously with your little gang?" Sirius took a step further into the balcony and shrugged.

"We all need breaks every now and then," he said after a moment. "Although I must admit, I was surprised in class today to see that you perform that little spectacle. What exactly brought that on?" he asked curiously.

Lily snorted. "You have to ask?" She asked snarkily. "Isn't all apart of yours and Potter's little plan?" Sirius immediately nodded in understanding.

"You'd think with all the girls that Prongs gets he'd have a bit more tact. More often than not, he doesn't excute it properly." Sirius said causing Lily to roll her eyes. "But that would have only annoyed you, not caused you to get that angry."

Lily instantly whirled around to face Sirius, her eyes gleaming with fury. "Let's get one thing perfectly clear," she hissed. "You know absolutely nothing about me! The only reason I haven't attacked you is because we can't mar your pretty face, seeing as you're engaged to a girl who is more like a sister to me than a friend!"

"You don't get to decide what makes me angry and what doesn't. You don't get to act like we're friends when we're not! You know nothing about me, you and Potter have a perfect fucking life! So why the hell do you both seemed so bent on ruining mine further than it already is?"

At her words, Sirius seemed to recoil and yet somehow keep his temper intact. Both were silent for a moment, as Lily turned back around to look over the balcony railing. Sirius began to take small steps closer to her before speaking again.

"Lily, you realize that James told me what you said today?" he asked softly, watching her as she didn't react. "Do you know how shocked he was to hear that word come out of your mouth? He hates hearing it, especially after last –"

"Don't," she whispered.

"—Spring," he finished. She looked down at her hands before speaking.

"You don't know me," she whispered. "and yet you both managed to completely destroy one of my most intimate relationships. I had three friends whom I could count on in anyway, and you and your little friends demolished it simply because you had to have a laugh.

"If I wasn't worried that Parker would have to marry Regulas, I could kill you for that." She hissed, barely noticing the shock in his eyes. "What? Didn't think that I was such a Slytherin?" Lily asked with a sarcastic laugh. "What did you expect?"

"I thought that you would actually listen," Sirius said after a moment. Lily simply watched him for a moment.

"Why would I listen to you?" She whispered. "You don't know me, you don't like me; what advice could you possibly give me that I could trust?" Lily turned away and simply stared out over the lake again. "I'm not like most kids in this school, I don't reach out and allow people to blindside me. I learned the repercussions from that already."

With that comment dangling, Lily pushed away from the balcony and walked past Sirius towards the door. Neither spoke after her last comment, and Lily made her way back to her dormitory where she found a note telling her to go to the dungeons. She sighed, while brushing her bangs out of her face, before nodding to herself and retrieving Sneakers and a bag of sour gummy worms and leaving the room.

"So, what on earth were you thinking?" Parker finally asked once Lily had settled into one of the many counters in the Muggle food room. "I mean you not only told off the teacher with the biggest sticks up his ass, but you threw your badge at him as well."

Lily didn't respond to the question, other than to simply shrug her shoulders and pet Sneakers. Ashton looked up from her position on the table where she'd been laying down.

"Lily?" Parker asked cautiously.

"I lost my temper." The redhead said softly. "It happens. With everything that's happened lately, it's not like it wasn't bound to happen eventually. So I blew up; other students have had this happened in like what, third year?"

"Other students aren't a prefect, not to mention they didn't tell a teacher to fuck off," Ashton pointed out. "Not to mention you picked the worst possible combination imaginable. You told off Stevens, and mentioned the fact that he hadn't been decently laid."

"Techniquely, that's not a crime," Parker said after a moment. "I mean nowhere does it say that you're not allowed to tell a Professor that they need to get laid." Lily and Ashton both smirked at the comment.

"I believe that can be filed under disrespect." Ashton said after a moment. "But Lily, you gave up your badge!"

"So?" she asked with a shrug. "I never wanted the thing to begin with. It just meant more cover for our tricks, in addition to better job opportunities." Lily said before taking a drink from her slushy. "Oh, and it made my mom happy. That's why I agreed with it to begin with. Because she saw it before I did!"

"Why didn't you tell us?" Ashton asked wide-eyed. Lily shrugged as Ashton exchanged a glance with Parker.

"Lily what's been going on with your parents lately?" Ashton finally asked, dismayed when she got yet another shrug from the redhead.

"Ashton, I didn't see them this summer. I spent the entire break in America with this one," she said nodding over to Parker.

"Withholding the reasons as to why, I have to say this; why the hell wasn't I invited?" the other two broke out into smiles. "But seriously, what on earth is going on with you Lily? How are you going to manage to go back to that class?"

Lily smirked before giving a simple shrug. "I'm not going to attend the lessons." She said simply, while her two friends stared open mouthed at her. "What? It's not like I'll get into trouble."

"You'll fail!" Parker said with her voice dripping of sarcasm.

"Not if I turn my work in on time." Lily answered. "And before you ask, Ashton, I simply have to slip it into Parker's bag every morning so that she hands it in with her own. It's not like they can punish for skipping. There's no rule that says you absolutely have to attend a class to enroll in one."

"Are you serious?" Parker asked with a glint in her eye.

"Don't even think about it."


End file.
